Anything and Everything
by Chasingtheimpossible
Summary: Alex is a trainwreck, doing anything and everything he can to get out of MI6, but they won't let him go. When it begins to go too far, he gets dumped with K-unit. Can they fix him, or has Alex Rider finally gone too far? Please R & R, be nice if possible.
1. Chapter 1

_**Well, this is officially one of the worst first chapters I have ever written, but hopefully the story will get better soon. This new story is my birthday present to myself. Yep, my birthday is today, and it would be really really cool if I got some reviews as presents. Hint hint... So yeah, read, try and enjoy, and bear in mind that it will get better. PROMISE **_

Eagle

I was walking along the street near where I had parked my car when I heard shouts and quick footsteps coming up the alley nearest to me. Swinging around, I glanced up just as someone slammed into me, sending the bag of groceries I was carrying flying. I caught a glimpse of bright blonde hair, then it was gone. When I looked up again, I spotted a rather overweight policeman giving chase.

"Stop him! He's getting away!" The policeman puffed up to me. "Very sorry about that sir. We're trying hard to catch him, but he's a slippery little bugger."

I growled and shoved my remaining shopping into the man's arms. "Hold these." Normally I would just let it go, but this punk had annoyed me. I hated shopping in all it's forms, and he had just obliterated two weeks worth of food. Rolling my eyes, I gave chase.

He may have outrun a policeman, but there was no way this kid was getting away from a trained SAS soldier. As I ran down the street after him, I couldn't help but notice that something about his wiry frame and messy blonde hair seemed familiar. I saw him glance over his shoulder, then speed up as he realised someone was actually giving serious pursuit. Damn, he was fast for a shrimp, but I was faster. By the time he reached the corner, I had caught up. I rugby tackled him to the ground, not trying to hurt him, just stop him.

"Get off of me!" He squirmed and tried to get away again. As he struggled, he flipped over onto his back and I got a look at his face.

"Cub?" I was so shocked I almost let go of him, getting an elbow in the stomach.

"I said, get off of me!"

I pinned his arms to his sides, hauling him upwards. "No. You're going to go back and face up to whatever it is you've done." The familiar pair of brown eyes glared up at me, and I just snorted. "Save the theatrics for the huffing, puffing, big, bad policeman you outran."

A slight smile touched his lips, but it was gone as quickly as it came.

The policeman was still standing where I'd left him, looking like a bit of an idiot holding my shopping. I handed Cub over to him. "Here you go. What did he do?"

"I don't think I'm really supposed to te-" He started to refuse, then saw the look in my eyes and thought better of it. "He was caught shoplifting."

Cub crossed his arms. "You can't prove anything."

He sighed, reaching out and removing the sunglasses balanced on the top of Cub's head. "Yes, we can."

I chuckled slightly. "I'll pay for them and take him home. I know where he lives." The policeman started to protest again, but shut up and three minutes later I was walking Cub towards my car. He was wearing the sunglasses, chewing gum and in general acting like a sulky teen. "Do up your seat belt."

Cub scowled again. "Make me."

"Okay, I will." I reached across and forced him into his seat belt before doing up the buckle. "There. Happy now?"

He shot me a fake smile. "You know it!"

I shrugged. "So where am I taking you?" He gave me directions and I followed them. Stopping just outside a nice house in Chelsea, I pulled the car over to the side of the road. "Do I need to explain this to your parents?"

"No!" Cub was out of the car and shutting the door almost before I got the question out.

"Alright, but wait one second. Here's my mobile number, in case you ever need to talk. I can tell you're going through some stuff, and it would be good to catch up."

He practically bared his teeth at me. "I'm fine." He turned and left without even saying thank you for the ride, but I didn't care. He took the number.

Alex

I ran up the stairs, then stood by a window watching Eagle drive away. I wanted to make sure he was gone. The last thing I needed was him finding out I lived by myself and asking questions. I had enough people trying to run my life as it was. My house phone rang and I groaned. Only one person knew it was still working, and I didn't want to talk to them. I answered anyway. "Yes?"

"Mr. Rider, it's the Royal and General Bank calling. Mr. Blunt has requested a meeting with you immediately."

"Fine. It's not like I have a choice in it anyway." I hung up the phone before the voice could say anything else.

Fifteen minutes later I was standing in Blunt's office for the second time in a week. He looked up as I came in.

"Alex, please sit."

"I'll stand." I blew a bubble with my gum, simply because I knew it bothered him. "What do you want this time?"

He rubbed his temples with the tips of his fingers, clearly trying to stave off a headache. "Exactly the same as the past five times." I knew it. "This crime spree thing you've got going on needs to stop. In the past month, you've shoplifted, vandalised, almost gotten multiple ASBO's, and it must stop. There's only so much we can do to cover this up."

I had heard this speech so often that I was mouthing the lines along with him.

_If people notice you aren't being charged or controlled, it will lead to the type of questions that we don't want to answer. _"If people notice you aren't being charged or controlled, it will lead to the type of questions that we don't want to answer." _They'll start to wonder why we're covering up for you, and the entire security of MI6 could be compromised. _"They'll start to wonder why we're covering up for you, and the entire security of MI6 could be compromised." I stopped paying attention, already planning my next exploit. "Alex! Are you mouthing the words that I'm about to say?"

I snorted, trying not to laugh too loudly. "Yes sir."

A vein in Blunt's temple began to pulse. "Well here's a new bit for you to memorise. I'm going to be finding you some caretakers to stop stunts like this from happening. You will live with them and they will be your guardians until you've proved that you can do better."

"What?" My mouth fell open. "But..."

"I understand you met up with an old friend today. Maybe he and his unit would be willing to take you in. We will contact them as soon as possible."

I groaned, collapsing back into a chair. My life officially sucked.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thank you so much guys! I had an awesome birthday, especially thanks to all of the reviews and story alerts you gave me :) I've never had that big a reaction to a story before, so I just wanted to thank you for that. If you guys have any ideas for this story, or even if you have an idea for another story, let me know! Cuz I love ideas xD **_

Alex

"Alex! Come back! We haven't finished talking yet." Blunt sat at his desk, looking exasperated as I walked out. I shoved my iPod headphones in my ears and turned up the volume. Screw him. As I was about to walk out of the lobby, a security guard came to stop me. Or at least, try to stop me. I floored him with one kick. More came out, and I tensed, settling into my preferred fighting stance. The first rushed at me, and I ducked under his arm, jabbing my elbow into his side as he went past me. Another one rushed at me, and I just punched him in the face, sending him staggering backwards towards the others. They soon figured out that coming at me alone wasn't going to work.

I don't know how long I was fighting for. I went into the mental zone that I try and live in when I'm hurting people, effectively turning into a machine. Guards lay sprawled around me, but more kept coming. I was about to kick one in the groin, then I felt a pinprick hit the side of my neck. Damn it. The world faded out, and I slumped to the ground.

Ben/Fox

At first, I thought it would be just MI6 giving me a mission as usual, but then the voice on the other end of the phone line asked for K-unit. All of us. I was so shocked I almost dropped the phone. Were they recruiting them? I tried to ask the voice, but all I got was the beep signaling the end of our call.

Ten minutes later, A very confused K-unit was wandering into what they thought was the Royal and General Bank. I was leading the way, but when I saw the scene in front of us, I stopped dead. Security guards were dragging other, slightly less conscious guards out of the way, while cleaners mopped what looked like blood off the floor. Wolf walked into me.

"What the hell happened? Is this even a bank?" He was almost shouting. I shushed him and led them all towards the elevator, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding that was growing in the pit of my stomach. Blunt was waiting for us in his office, starting to speak almost the second we closed the door.

"Gentlemen. Welcome to MI6. We're very sorry about the charades, but it's important that people don't know where to find us, and a bank seemed like a good cover story. You know, it's a matter of national security. Which, coincidentally, is what I wanted to talk to you about." He paused, looking annoyed as Eagle interrupted.

"Wait, so this is MI6? As in, spies and secret agents? Cool!" I stepped on his foot to make him shut up.

Blunt scowled at him. "Yes, I suppose it is. But anyway, I need your help with something. You may remember an old comrade of yours, Cub. Well, he's in need of a place to stay and someone to watch over him. I was hoping that you could help him out."

Wolf laughed. "Are you serious? We won't take care of a kid! There has to be someone else. Besides, he doesn't need us. He can take care of himself."

"Yes, that's what we thought when we allowed him to live by himself. Instead, he went off the rails, endangering himself and the security of the nation." Blunt gestured behind us, and we spun around.

I felt my breath catch in my throat, and I jumped to my feet. "What happened to Al-Cub, I mean?"

"That's unimportant."

I waved my arms back to where the mass of bruises that used to be a boy sat slumped in a chair. "Really? Because it looks pretty important to me!"

Blunt sighed. "Very well. Alex tried to leave a meeting with us, and a security guard tried to stop him. He's in the hospital with two broken ribs right now. More came out to try and prevent him from hurting anyone else. Seven unconscious, four put in hospital. I think we can safely say he got off easily."

That was the part I hated most about MI6. The way they would mess up, hurting people and ruining people's lives, then cover it up and blame it on someone else. "Fine. We'll take him." All of K-unit turned to look at me. "Guys, let's discuss this in the hallway."

Once we got out there, Wolf punched me in the shoulder. "We'll take him? What was that?"

"That's me trying to protect someone who we once trained with and who needs us."

Eagle chimed in. "I agree with Fox. I saw him earlier today, and something's up with him."

"Wait, there's something I don't understand." Snake's Scottish accent broke into the conversation. "Why is Cub even _in_ MI6? He's too young to be an agent."

I shrugged. "That's Cub's secret to tell, not mine. So, are we going to do this?"

Wolf threw up his hands. "Fine, I'm outvoted. But you know we aren't the right guys for this job." We went back in the office to talk to Blunt.

"Okay. We agree. He can come live in our flat."

Blunt smiled. "I knew you would see it my way. Thank you gentlemen. So, sign here and he'll be release into your custody. Oh look, he's waking up! Just in time."

I walked over to him. "Cub. Wake up Cub."

He moaned. "Owww. Screw you Blunt. You can't even get guards who can fight properly. Have to take me out with a freaking tranquilliser dart."

If I wasn't so annoyed, I would have laughed. "You tranquillised him?"

"He's quite the fighter."

"Yes, but if you had to do that, how did he get the bruises?"

"Let's just say some of the security guards took longer to realise he was out than others." Blunt shrugged and walked out, leaving us to try and wake Alex up then get him home.

Wolf

I wasn't happy when Cub came to stay with us. It wasn't that I didn't like him, but he clearly needed more help than we had the time or patience to give him. And also, the first thing he did when we got him home was try to leave. I picked him up and carried him back to the couch. "You aren't going anywhere until we work out what's happening. Why were you at MI6?"

"No reason. Can I go now?" He crossed his arms. "If I'm going to be stuck here, I want to get clothes and stuff."

Clearly that was all we were going to get. "Fine. Fox, you want to go with him?"

"I don't need a babysitter!" Cub protested, but Fox nodded and steered him out the door.

Fox

Alex gave me directions to get to his house, a fairly large place in Chelsea. When we got there, he was out almost before I'd parked the car.

"Alex, wait up!" I jogged after him, then paused at the door, shocked by what I saw in front of me. There was a bloodstain by the door that looked like it led to the kitchen. But even more strangely, the house was clean. It was the weirdest thing I had ever seen. I wandered over to the bin in the kitchen and lifted the lid. There was the regular food, debris, and old newspapers, but several beer cans as well. I pursed my lips. We were going to be having a talk about that. Where had Alex gone? Hearing noises from upstairs, I went up to see if he was there. He was standing in his room, shoving clothes and other things in a bag. I grabbed a box and began to pile books in it, but he grabbed it from me.

"What are you doing?" He scowled at me again.

"I'm trying to help you pack." I took the box again. 

He snatched it away. "No, you aren't."

"Am."

"Aren't."

"Am."

"Aren't."

I was about to say 'am' again, then I realised that I sounded like a five year old. "Fine. I won't help you. I'll just sit here and stare at you as you take twice as long to do everything."

"Fine." He shoved the box back at me. "I don't need everything, just a few books and CD's."

Smirking, I continued packing up the books. Alex Rider- 0. K-unit- 1.

_**Sorry, I know it's not very interesting. I'm trying to make it go slow enough, but at the same time, I don't want it to be boring. Please review with any suggestions or ideas or just comments in general :) **_


	3. Chapter 3

_**So I know I just updated, but I didn't have anything to do, and I felt that you guys deserved another chapter, seeing as you were so amazing with reading and reviewing :) Plus, I was feeling inspired. I was also feeling a bit creative, hence the weird dream at the beginning. Enjoy and review! **_

Alex

_ Faces flew past him. Yassen Gregorovich, Alan Blunt, Ian Rider, Wolf, Jack, Ash, foes, friends, it didn't matter. All of their faces were twisted into grotesque parodies of real facial expressions. Some were dripping blood, but it wasn't those that scared him the most. It was the manic smiles of people that he considered friends and allies that terrified him. All of them gathered in a circle around him. Then, one by one, they began to chant. They chanted names, and he instinctively knew that they were the names of people he had hurt and killed. Then, they began to chant just one name, over and over. His. With every word, they moved closer. Soon, he was buried beneath them. He screamed, trying to dig his way out, but just ending up further in than he was before. Ben suddenly flashed in front of him, shouting once. 'Alex!' _

Fox

I woke up to the sound of screaming. I was sleeping on an extra bed in Wolf's room, having given mine up to Alex. The first scream woke me, the second had me on my feet, and the third saw me sprinting towards his room. He lay on his bed, thrashing around, the sheets tangled around his legs. I kneeled next to him, trying to wake him without getting hit my his flailing arms.

"Cub! Cub, wake up!" I shook him, but he didn't wake. No one else seemed to be awake, so I took a chance. "Alex!"

He shot straight up. "No!" He was rubbing a spot on his t-shirt, just above his heart. He was awake, his open eyes wild, but the second he saw me, his face went blank, destroying all traces of emotion. I reached out to touch his shoulder, and he casually moved away.

"Are you alright? You were having a bad dream."

He looked at me with those empty, haunted eyes. "I don't dream." Alex lay back down, turning to face away from me.

Sighing, I sat down in a chair in the corner. "I'm going to stay here until you fall asleep, okay?"

He sat up and looked at me. "No. Please leave."

I shook my head and stayed where I was, staring straight at him. He didn't move for what seemed like an hour, then his shoulders slumped and he exhaled. "I'm not going back to sleep."

"Why? Scared that the dreams will come back?"

"No! I told you, I don't dream! I'm just not tired. I got loads of sleep last night." He crossed his arms, daring me to disagree.

"Fine. I'll stay up with you."

"I'm going to go take a shower." He got up.

I shrugged. "Do you like coffee?"

"It's alright."

"I'll make us both some."

"Fine." We walked to the door together, then turned in opposite directions. Once in the kitchen, I glanced at the clock. 3:47. It was going to be a long night.

Three hours later

"Hey, Alex!" I gestured to him. "Come see the sunrise!"

He looked at me strangely. "Okay..." We went out onto the balcony, staring out at the changing sky. For a split second, Alex looked at peace, almost like a normal teen boy, but then he saw me looking at him and was back to being sullen and emotionless. "K-Unit will be up any minute." He turned and walked inside.

Eagle

My alarm went off at 7:00, like every other day, and I got up so that I could be sure to get what was left of my favourite cereal. Wandering into the kitchen, I absentmindedly opened the cupboard... and froze. I turned and stalked into the living room, where Cub and Fox were sitting, playing poker, and eating the last two bowls of Lucky Charms.

"How could you?" I stood there with my mouth open and tears in my eyes. "My favourite cereal!"

Fox was clearly trying not to laugh, and Cub was sitting there with an eyebrow raised, calmly crunching away. Fox handed me what was left of his bowl. "This is all I have left. Sorry about that." Slightly placated, I collapsed on the armchair between them, studying the table. There was a small pile of chips in front of Fox, and a really big one in front of Cub. Fox was our second best poker player. I was our worst, and Wolf was our best. They both lay down their cards, and Cub collected what was left of Fox's chips. He sighed.

"You win again."

Alex

Ben was actually a decent guy, just like I remembered from the mission we did together. I almost regretted how hard I was going to have to make his life. But I wanted out of MI6, and out of MI6 I was going to get. That could wait for a while though. I sat on the couch with a book, trying to ignore the rest of the world. A hand slipped over my eyes, and I jumped up, about to punch whoever it was. Eagle jumped back.

"A little jumpy today, aren't you Cub?" He grinned.

I kept my expression neutral. "A little annoying today, aren't you Eagle?"

"I try." His grin got even bigger, something I didn't think was possible. "So, what's got your panties in a twist?"

"Okay, first of all, who says that? Second of all, I'm stuck in a house with you."

"That hurts Cub, that really does." He swung a half-hearted punch at me, I ducked under it, and the next thing I knew we were wrestling. I was a good fighter, but I didn't stand a chance. Pretty soon he was sitting on top of me, whistling to himself. "That was for eating my Lucky Charms."

Wolf came in. "Having fun there Cub?" I made a sort of strangled grunt, and he chuckled. "Maybe you should let him up. I don't think he can breathe."

"Fine..." Eagle got up, and I rolled over, taking deep breaths of air.

"You suck." I got up and collapsed back onto the couch. My phone rang, and I picked it up. "Hello?"

"Alex. It's Ms. Jones-"

"Screw you." I snapped the phone shut.

Eagle laughed. "Awww, did little Cub just get dumped?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about." I got up and walked out, slamming the door of the flat as I went. I was sure they were going to give me a few weeks to settle in. Maybe even months. It was stupid to even think of that, though. MI6 didn't care about my well-being when they recruited me, or any of the other times they put me in danger, so why should moving houses make them stop and think about me? I stopped, wanting to scream as I saw where I had subconsciously walked to. I was standing outside the Royal and General. There were a few rocks near my feet, and without even thinking about it, I reached down, picked them up, and hurled them through the front window. Then I sat down to wait for the police.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Wow, you guys are actually amazing! I've never gotten that many reviews in one night. And thank you for pointing out that I didn't have anonymous reviews enabled, I totally hadn't noticed that xD It's fixed now. I'm going to be trying to update at least once a day, maybe even twice sometimes, but I will be the first to admit that I'm a terrible updater. Probably the worst. However, school's over, so I should be able to manage it more regularly. Please be patient with me, and keep reviewing! :D **_

Fox

By the time I got the phone call about Alex's little misdeed, I was starting to be afraid of the phone. About half an hour after Alex stormed out, it rang. I winced, and leaned over to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Is this the home of the guardians of an 'Alex Rider'?" The voice on the phone was a cool, crisp male.

I sighed. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"We have him in custody here at the police station. We need someone to come down here so we can talk to him." I groaned, and letting the phone slip away from my ear, I banged my head against the coffee table. Then I did it again. And again.

"Hello? Are you still there?"

Straightening up again and rubbing my forehead, I sighed. "Yes, sorry. I'll be right there." Hanging up the phone, I considered telling the rest of K-unit, but decided against it. If they heard him referred to as Alex, it would raise up questions. And MI6 hated questions. I went into the kitchen to grab some apirin for my throbbing headache, then, thinking about it, tossed the entire bottle in my bag. This would probably give me the biggest migraine in the history of the universe.

When I arrived at the police station, I was directed to a room where Alex was being held. Or rather, handcuffed. I turned to the officer by the door. "Is it standard policy to handcuff teenagers when you bring them in?"

He shrugged. "Only if they're dangerous."

"He's a fifteen year old..."

"He gave my partner quite the black eye." The officer scowled, and Alex grinned at him. This was going to be tricky to get out of.

"Okay, so what exactly did he do?"

Alex smirked as the officer answered. "He threw a rock through the window of a bank. We're calling it vandalism."

I sighed, asking the question I thought I already knew the answer to. "Which bank?"

"The Royal and General." I groaned. This was just fantastic. Then someone else came into the room.

"Excuse me, I'm here from the Royal and General Bank. We have decided that we aren't going to press charges against Mr. Rider. In fact, we would like to forget that this ever happened." My head shot up. That was Ms. Jones. She was top MI6, and they were letting Alex go? Why? He had done one mission with them. You wouldn't think it was enough for them to be letting something like this go.

The policeman cleared his throat. "That's all very well and good, but he still assaulted a police officer. That's a crime in and of itself."

Ms. Jones sighed and handed over a letter. "I think this should clear things up." He nodded and left the room.

Alex scowled at her. "What's in that? Bribes for all the officers involved and a signed order from MI6 to let me go?"

"Yes Alex. Just like last time. You may not be so fortunate the next time around." She turned and walked out. Less than ten minutes later, I was dragging Alex back towards the car.

"What the hell were you thinking? And what did she mean 'the last time'?"

He rolled his eyes. "Calm down. It's not a big deal."

"You threw a rock through the window of MI6."

"Yeah, I know. I was there." I had to stifle a laugh at his expression.

"This needs to stop. All of this fighting with law enforcement, throwing things, being disrespectful. It needs to stop."

He just laughed at me. "Do security guards count as law enforcement?"

"Haha, very funny Alex." We arrived back at the flat, and I dragged him inside. "Look what I found at the police station!"

Everyone turned to look at us. Eagle laughed. "Wow, Cub, what did you do?"

"He threw a rock through the window of MI6." I growled and went to go find some coffee.

Wolf's mouth fell open. "He did WHAT?"

Alex stood up. "_He_ is right here. Please don't talk about him like he's not in the room." He turned to go to his room.

"Where do you think you're going?" Wolf called after him, but he ignored us. I sighed and went after him. By the time I got there, he had locked the door, but I just picked the lock and walked in. He whirled around to face me, and I was shocked to see that his cheeks were wet.

"Get out!" Alex scowled, hastily wiping his cheeks.

"No." I handed him my mug of coffee, trying not to think about all the damage he could do with it.

Surprisingly, he just put it down. "Please?"

"No. I'll try and help you, but I can't do that if you don't tell me the problem."

The look in his eyes softened, but he just shrugged. "I can't. Not yet."

"Well, not yet is better than never, right?" I smiled and stepped aside to let him walk out. "You should go take a shower or a bath or something. You know, wash off that nice coating of dried blood that you seem to have on your face. Who's is it, by the way?"

He smiled slightly. "I think part of it's mine, but a lot of it came from the nose of that idiot policeman."

Rolling my eyes, I let him leave, then sat down in the armchair in the corner. He came back in around ten minutes, not seeing me. He pulled off his shirt, and I cleared my throat, trying to help him avoid any embarrassing moments. The noise made him jump, and he spun around to face me. For a second he froze, then he whipped his shirt back over his head, quickly, but not quickly enough to stop me from seeing something. "Cub. What was that?"

Laughing nervously, he avoided my eyes. "What was what?"

"The thing that looks like a bullet wound on your chest." It was in the same spot that he had woken up rubbing after his nightmare.

He chuckled. "Bullet wound? Are you crazy?"

"Cub."

His shoulders sagged and he sighed. "Fine. It is a bullet wound. Happy now?"

My mouth fell open. "Not especially! Who the fuck shot you?"

"Does it really matter?"

"Yes, it matters!"

He tugged off his shirt. "I can show you it, and I can tell you it's there, but I'm afraid I can't tell you that."

"Why the hell not?"

"It's classified." My mouth fell open. The only people I had ever heard answer a question like that were all...

"Cub, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to answer it as truthfully as you can. How many missions have you been on for MI6?" I handed him his shirt back, and waited for his answer.

He bit his lip. "Can't tell you."

"Was the one we went on together the only one?" Closing his eyes, he shook his head. I jumped to my feet. I had thought it was despicable for them to use him on one mission, but to continue using him? He was fourteen! My face hardened, and I headed for the door. I was going to kill them. Then I stopped. Alex had his hand on my shoulder, and when I looked back at him, he shook his head.

"Don't." He looked at me, and he smiled slightly. "Can you do something for me?"

I calmed down slightly and turned back to face him. "I hope so."

"Can you help me get the blood out of my shirt? It's my favourite one..." I knew he was just trying to distract me, but I went along with it. It wasn't like MI6 were still using him, so I didn't need to risk my own career.

"Yeah, I'll take it to the dry-cleaners later." I glanced at my watch. "Almost time for dinner. What do you want to eat?"

He laughed. "You can cook?"

"Not well, but better than most of the others. I think I'll just order pizza tonight though." I was so lost in planning out the order that I almost missed what he said next.

"Can you teach me?"

"You want to learn how to cook?" I raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He nodded, and I remembered something else that I had wanted to ask him. "Cub, what about school?"

"What about it? I don't go to school."

"Well, do you want us to try and teach you some stuff?" It's not like we were really clever, but we probably had a head start on Alex.

"Yeah, that would be cool." He smiled slightly. "Thank you." I grinned at him and left the room. Bit by bit, Alex was coming out of his shell. Maybe soon he would actually start to trust us.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Yes, I am uploading twice today :) (Cue screaming excited fans) Just kidding... I don't think I have any fans xD However, I have amazing readers who review and make this all worthwhile. Please keep doing what you're doing! :) Also, I have a bit of a random question for you. You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, it's just an extension of a conversation I was having with a friend earlier. If I wrote a novel and asked you to buy it, would you? Haha I told you it was random... Without further ado, here's the next chapter :D**_

Eagle

I stood by the doorway to the dining room, watching as Snake struggled to teach Cub science. We'd all chosen/been assigned to a subject, and as the medic of the team, Snake seemed the logical choice for Science. He sighed.

"Cub, I know you know this."

Cub looked at him with a slightly too innocent look on his face. It was a look that we had all become a bit too familiar with over the past week. "But I really don't!"

"What's two plus two?"

"Four"

"What's the stuff that grows on top of your head?"

"Hair."

"What colour are your eyes?"

"Brown."

"What shape is a strand of DNA?"

"A double heli- Damn it!"

Snake grinned. "I knew you knew it. That trick works every time."

Cub pouted. "Well it won't next time." He sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"So, remind me again why you refuse to answer all of my questions related to school?" Snake sighed and ran his hand through his short hair. "How am I supposed to teach you if I don't know what you know?"

"Maybe if you tried to teach me something interesting, then it wouldn't be a problem."

Snake began to laugh. "All right, would you prefer it if we made double helices out of wire and clay instead?" The books were put away, and out came the art supplies. For some reason art was the only subject we could get him to actively participate in. Wolf had tried to teach him Maths, Fox had gone for English, and I was teaching him... Well I was supposedly teaching him History, but I don't know much about History, or teaching, so we spent most of our time coming up with pranks that we would eventually use on the others. I guess it doesn't really need to be said that he had an unusual education. Also, while the SAS had given us a few months leave to get Cub settled in, we all still had things to do, so his lessons could be any time from nine in the morning to the middle of the night.

Grinning, I stood watching them as they got clay all over the table and themselves. Cub looked happier than I had seen him in a while. Fox and Wolf came to stand with me, and we just watched them for a while. Then, Fox's phone rang, and Cub glanced up, saw us watching and stopped smiling.

"What?" He scowled. "Does this look like a zoo to you?" Fox excused himself, going off to answer his phone, and I sat down on the couch, turning on the TV. I heard footsteps come up next to me, but didn't bother to look up.

Cub sat next to me. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. I guess I'm not really used to living with people yet."

"That's okay. I don't think you can even count us as people really. We're pretty weird." He laughed, and I felt encouraged to ask him something I had been wondering for a while. "Why were you living by yourself?"

"My guardian died." He stopped laughing, but he answered the question, so it was already going better than expected. "She died, and I managed to live by myself. That's all there is to it." I could tell that that wasn't actually all there was to it, but I didn't push him.

"So, do you still want to do that prank?" I didn't need to specify, he knew the one I was talking about.

He grinned. "Let's do it."

Wolf

I walked into the apartment, expecting to see someone sitting on the couch, or at least hear some kind of sound coming from any of the rooms. The first thing I thought was that whoever had been home had probably been called to deal with a Cub-tastrophe. That was what we were calling the numerous tight spots and sticky patches he managed to get into. There had been three in the past week, involving some shoplifted milk (that wasn't what Fox meant when he asked Cub to buy some), underage drinking, and some more vandalism. Needless to say, we weren't exactly thrilled, but we still kept going to get him out. The next thought I had was that it was quiet. Too quiet. That was the first inkling I had that something wasn't quite right.

I took a step in the direction of the dining room. The next second, all hell broke loose.

A gigantic black shape dropped down in front of me. "SPIDER!" I screeched, stumbling backwards, triggering multiple tripwires. All of a sudden, water balloons and eggs and god knows what else were flying through the air, all headed straight for me. It was over in under a minute, and I lay there with egg, water and confetti in my hair, the giant rubber spider that had started it all dangling above me. I could hear howls of laughter coming from nearby.

"Eagle! Cub! Come here! Now." I struggled to get up, trying not to slip on any egg. They appeared in front of me, clearly trying to look ashamed of themselves, and failing miserably.

"Wow, Wolf, what happened to you?" Eagle asked, his eyes wide.

Cub chimed in. "Yeah, it looks like you got attacked by a chicken. And a hose. And some confetti."

"Very astute Cub. Now stop with the innocent act. I know you two did this."

He burst out laughing and I leaped at him, tackling him into the mess on the floor. He snagged Eagle's ankle on the way down, and all of us crashed to the ground, laughing our heads off. That was how Fox and Snake found us when they came back from food shopping. Fox bent over us, staring at each of us in turn.

"What are you doing?" Eagle could barely get the words out between snorts of laughter.

"I'm trying to work out if you're mental, or if you're just drunk." We started laughing even harder, and he just shook his head, clearly bemused by our behavior.

Alex

It had been almost a month since I moved in with K-unit. MI6 hadn't called for me in almost as long, and I was finally starting to feel normal. Then, just like always, it all came crashing down. I was lying on my bed, doodling in the margins of the notebook I was supposed to be doing my maths homework in, when my mobile rang. I froze, just staring at it for a minute, then I slowly picked it up.

"Hello?"

"This is the Royal and General Bank calling. Mr. Alan Blunt wants to see you as soon as possible." It caught me off guard. Being happy had made me soft, and I couldn't even come up with a decent response. All I could do was mumble something into the phone line and press the button to end the call.

I pulled on a jacket and walked down to the home of my least favourite organisation.

Blunt was sitting in the exact same place behind his desk, face impassive as always. I flopped down in the chair, and he began to speak.

"Alex, your country needs you-"

I interrupted him. "I've told you before and I'll tell you again. I won't work for you. Not for anything."

A smile crept up on to his lips, the last thing I expected in that situation. "Are you sure? What if I told you we could have you taken away from home, your caretakers put in jail, and you placed in a grimy boarding school somewhere?" He leaned towards me. "Would you work for me for K-unit?"


	6. Chapter 6

_**Sorry I didn't do this earlier, I was with some friends, and sorry it's not quite as long as usual. Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I just remembered that I keep forgetting to do this, so here it goes... I do NOT own Alex Rider, any of the books, anything. But I really wish I did. :D **_

Alex

I was about to open my mouth, to say the words that would tell Blunt he was insane, to tell him that I wouldn't do it, to finally set myself free, but when my lips parted, nothing came out. Images flashed in front of me. Ben, trying to teach me how to flip a pancake; Eagle, laughing at me as I came up with another stupid idea; Snake rolling his eyes at my refusal to do anything productive, and Wolf, sitting on the floor covered in egg and confetti. I shut my mouth, then opened it again, probably looking like a goldfish. From the way Blunt was smiling, it was obvious that he knew he had discovered the one thing guaranteed to make me co-operate.

"So, Alex, what will it be?"

I just stared at him for a minute, then I smiled bitterly. "I'll do it, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

He smiled back. "I know you, Alex. You would never let someone else get hurt because of you."

"Just tell me the mission."

"Very well. According to a source we have placed inside of Scorpia, they seem to have taken a leaf out of our book."

"What, they've decided to stop killing people and start blackmailing teenagers to do their dirty work instead?" I may have had to do their missions, but I didn't remember anyone saying I had to be polite about it.

"Well, yes actually. Although, I don't believe they're using blackmail."

My mouth fell open. "They're recruiting teenagers?" I had done seven missions with MI6, and two with the CIA, but I had never come across something like this. Even when I joined Scorpia, the thought had never crossed my mind that any teenager would choose to do this voluntarily. I had spent the past year trying to escape this life, and they were choosing it.

"Yes. Needless to say, we need to do something about this. We want you to go undercover, pretending to be a new recruit."

"Wait, that's never going to work. They've seen me. I brought them down before, so I'm pretty sure they know who I am."

He sighed. "That's why you will be in disguise."

"It had better be some disguise."

A new voice broke into the conversation. "It will be, dear boy. After all, I'm designing it."

Looking up, I grinned. "Smithers. Long time no see." Of all the people in MI6, Smithers was probably the one I trusted the most. He smiled at me, but there was a strange glint in his eye that I couldn't quite work out at first.

"Yes, it has been quite a while." He walked over to stand beside my chair. "If you're done briefing him about the task, I should really start making sure that this will work. Can I borrow Alex?"

"Carry on." Smithers led me down to a room that seemed to have been arranged specially for this purpose. There was a rack full of clothes, a table with various boxes and jars that I wouldn't know what to do with, and everything you could think of necessary to disguise a person completely. I sighed.

"Right, let's start with your appearance. I think we'll be needing a fake tan, some hair dye, coloured contacts, the works." Smithers' assistant, who apparently dealt with this sort of stuff, rubbed her hands together ominously.

An hour and a half later, I didn't recognise myself. The boy in the mirror staring back at me had a dark tan, close-cropped dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a slightly crooked nose. I had to reach up and touch my cheek, just to make sure it was really me.

"Wait. I know I look totally different now, but I still think they could recognise me." I turned towards Smithers, waiting to see if he had any more creative ideas. "I'll be caught."

He sighed slightly, and I was finally able to put a name to the look in his eyes earlier. It was pity, and sorrow. "I know. Trust me dear boy, I know." Cheering up slightly, he dragged me over to another table. "However, we've come up with some even more creative gadgets."

I laughed, excited. Smithers' gadgets were the coolest things I had ever seen. He handed me a small pot of ink. I looked down at it, considerably less excited. "This is a pot of ink."

"Yes, thank you Alex. It is also a tracer. We'll paint some patterns on you, pretend it's henna, and then we'll know where you are at all times." He pulled out a brush and sat me down. "So, what would you like? And where?"

By the time he was done, I had an inhaler that was actually a 'panic button' as he put it (t contacted MI6, letting them know they should come get me out), and several tracer ink patterns drawn on my biceps. That was it.

"Are you sure that's all you can give me?"

Smithers looked apologetic. "We don't think they're going to let you take much in. We'll be lucky if you get away with the inhaler."

"Great. Thanks anyway Smithers. I'll see you in two weeks." I smiled at him and shook his hand. I didn't need to be telepathic to know what he was thinking next. _I doubt it._

Fox

I received a call from Blunt, asking me to come in to his office ASAP. When I got there, he said he wanted to introduce me to someone.

"Fox, this is Derek."

I turned around to find a dark haired teenager leaning against the wall. "Hey."

Wait, that sounded like... "Alex!" It even looked a bit like him too. When I looked closer, more similarities seemed to become visible.

'Derek' smiled guiltily. "Hi Fox."

I whirled around to face Blunt. "What have you done to Alex?" Then it dawned on me. "You're sending him on a mission, aren't you?"

He nodded. "Yes. I'm afraid he's needed."

"I don't care how much he's _needed_, he is _not_ doing this."

Blunt smiled. "I'm afraid there isn't much you can do to stop him. Alex has agreed, and we need him."

I was about to charge Blunt and punch the crap out of him, but Alex stepped in front of me. "Fox, it's okay. I'll be okay." He did something that I'd never seen him do to anyone before. Alex hugged me. "It's not that dangerous." Letting go, he stepped back and handed me a letter. "I explained it all in this. The mission is only supposed to last two weeks. We can talk about it when I get back."

Before I could protest again, he was gone, slipping out of the door, moving on to begin his mission. I turned to Blunt. "If he gets hurt, I will personally come back and take you down." Turning, I stalked out. Once I was safely in my car, I unfolded the letter he had given me.

_Fox,_

_ Please don't worry about me. I didn't want to do this, but I had to. He was going to take me away from you, and there are people that need my help. I can't tell you what I have to do, but I'll be back in two weeks time, and you can shout at me then. For now, go punch Eagle for me, and make up some excuse about where I am. _

_ See you soon,_

_ Alex/Cub/Derek/whatever my name is_

Groaning, I smacked my head on the steering wheel. How could I protect Alex when the danger was coming from the people who were supposed to keep us all safe?


	7. Chapter 7

_**So, I'm sort of going to write about the mission, but not all of it. This chapter's kind of dark, and I can't say I had that much fun writing it, but it sort of needed to happen. Thank you again to everyone who reviewed :D I don't own Alex Rider :'( **_

Alex: Day 2 of the mission

_What's happening? Why have I been shut up like this? Did they recognise me? _Almost as soon as I joined the training program, they had separated me from the group, grabbed me, and shut me in this room. That was around a day ago. Maybe it was longer... When you're shut up in a windowless cell it's kind of hard to tell. I didn't waste any energy trying to get out or shouting, because if there's one thing that Scorpia knows, it's how to shut people up. Finally, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway towards my cell. I scrambled to my feet, trying to come up with a plan.

The door opens and the silhouette of a man appears in the doorway. All of a sudden, a bright light came on, making my eyes hurt. The door shut again, and it was just the two of us, facing each other. My hands were tied, so there wasn't much I could do. He grinned suddenly. _Great. My least favourite kind of bad guy. The kind that smile._

"So apparently you're Derek."

"Yes. I am." _Maybe they didn't recognise me._

He smiled again. "But we both know that isn't true." Without warning, his hand reached out and slapped me. For a second, I didn't feel anything, then the world exploded and my ears started ringing. "So. Would you like to say your real name?" _Yep, they recognised me._

I gritted my teeth. "Derek." The next slap almost knocked me off my feet.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you. Can you repeat yourself?"

"Derek." I braced myself for another slap, but it didn't come. Relaxing slightly, I looked curiously towards where the man was. Then his foot hit me square in the ribs and I fell to the floor, gasping for air. He kicked me again, and then again. I curled into a ball, trying to protect myself, but blows were raining down on me from all directions. It seemed to go on forever, but then, all at once, it stopped.

"So, Alex Rider, would you like to tell us your name now?"

_If they already knew my name, what harm would it do to tell them?_ Anything to make the pain stop, right? I turned my face up towards him and grinned slightly. "Derek."

The smile disappeared from his face, and as his fist swung towards me, I blacked out.

Fox: Day 1

MI6 wouldn't tell me what his mission was, or even where it was. And they wouldn't let me tell K-unit anything. I sat in the car for half an hour, and the best excuse I could come up with was 'He's gone to stay with a friend.' It was pathetic. As a spy, I'm supposed to be able to lie under pressure, even under torture, yet the best thing I could come up with was that? I would have said I was an embarrassment to MI6, but the way they used Alex, it was more like they were an embarrassment to me.

Everyone was sprawled on the couch when I came in, and they looked up, clearly expecting to see Alex.

"Where's Cub?" Wolf squinted at me like I was hiding him behind my back or something. "Has he run off _again?_"

"Nope, it's not a Cub-tastrophe. He's gone to stay with some friends for two weeks. They're going on vacation, and they've invited him to come along."

Snake raised an eyebrow. "Really? Where are they going?"

"Um... CANADA!" I shouted the last word in relief at having come up with an answer and they all jumped about a foot. "Yeah. Canada."

"Ooookay..." They gave me a variety of weird looks and went back to watching TV, and I walked over to Eagle and punched him in the shoulder.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Cub told me to do it." I laughed as he sat there rubbing his shoulder and wearing his 'offended Eagle' face.

"Even when he's gone he's torturing me."

Alex

The next time I woke up, I was tied to a chair, and people were dumping buckets of water over me. They shouted questions, but I couldn't answer.

Over the next week and a half, I saw a lot of those people. I slipped in and out of consciousness, refusing to answer any questions they asked and getting punished for it. Every minute they were there seemed like a week and every minute they weren't was like a second. Every part of me ached and burned, but I wouldn't talk to them. I just kept thinking _MI6 will be here soon. K-unit will come and get me._

I woke up alone for the first time since I had been found, and used the moment to take stock of my various injuries. Head? Hurting. Shoulders? _Slightly sore_. Ribs and chest? _Ow_. Arms? _Bruised._ Legs? _Bruised, unable to stand on the right one._ Feet? _Actually fine._ So, I was locked up by Scorpia with everything but my feet hurting and nothing to help me escape, waiting for MI6 to come rescue me. Fun, fun, fun. I heard footsteps coming down the hall and retreated into the corner, curling up into a ball. It seemed that they had gotten bored of leaving me alone. The door opened and I flinched away from the light.


	8. Chapter 8

_**GUESS WHAT? You guys are officially my heroes. Wanna know why? This story has officially broken the 50 review mark! It's my first story to do so, and I just wanted to thank you for that :D I would have posted this earlier, but I got distracted by Potter Puppet Pals. I MEAN EVERY WORD I EVER SAY EVER. BECAUSE I'M HARRY POTTER. xD So, I left the last one on a teeny weeny bit of a cliff hanger, so here ya go :) If I owned Alex Rider, Blunt would have been killed off long ago... **_

Fox

Blunt had called and offered me the chance to be a part of the Alex recovery mission, and I agreed. Of course I agreed, knowing MI6, even if they got him out okay, he'd be dead by the end of the journey. Someone had to look out for him. Once we finally arrived on the random island chosen to be the new home of Scorpia, we split into our respective task groups. Group A was supposed to find and contain the leaders of the program, group B was supposed to locate any plans or useful documents, group C was supposed to rescue Alex, and D was supposed to trash the place and arrest anyone they saw. I had insisted on being part of group C. In fact, I _was_ group C. They hadn't assigned anyone else to the job.

I ran down the hallways, following the tracer that would lead me to Alex. The bad feeling that had been building in the pit of my stomach intensified as the rooms I passed got darker and less clean. Soon I got close enough that the tracer was useless, and I stuffed it in my bag, opening all of the doors around me to try and find him. My search got more frantic with each empty room. Then I pushed open a final door, to find him curled up in a ball in the corner. He cringed away from the light in the corridor, and I ran over to him.

"Alex!" I reached out to touch him. "Alex, can you hear me?"

He pulled away. "No. Please..."

"Alex. It's Fox."

"I give up. Please, I'll tell you. Ask me anything, I've changed my mind."

_What could they possibly have done to him, the most stubborn person I knew, to reduce him to this? _I reached down to pick him up, wincing as he cried out. "Alex, I'm not going to hurt you."

"But I will. He's made a fool of Scorpia one too many times." A man stood in the doorway, blocking our exit. He was holding a gun, and it was pointed straight at Alex. I quickly put him down and moved in front of him. The man sneered and moved as if to shoot. I ducked under his arm and knocked the gun out of his hand. He lashed out at me, knocking me backwards. Catching my balance, I tried to kick him, but he blocked it. Right away I knew I was in trouble. The man was clearly stronger than I was, and he didn't need to worry about protecting someone in the middle of a fight. The only positive aspect I could think of was that the gun seemed to have disappeared. He began to overpower me, and I was sure that I was going to die.

"Alex. Run. Now." I grunted the words while blocking a punch. The next one hit me right in the nose, and I stumbled back into the wall. He was about to attack again, but I couldn't move fast enough. I braced myself for the blow, but I heard a crack, and it never came. Opening my eyes, I gaped at the scene in front of me. Alex was slumped against the wall next to me, staring at the gun in his hands with horrified eyes. In front of him lay the man, bleeding all over the floor and Alex, The gun fell to the floor with a clatter, and Alex's head fell forward into his hands. I leaned down and picked him up, then stepped over the man's body and began the search for the way out.

When we were out in the daylight, Alex's injuries became almost too apparent. Every inch of him was covered with bruises, and his face was swollen and bleeding. His clothes were in tatters, with his ribs sticking out from underneath the ripped shirt he was wearing. There was a dense mass of bruises around his ribcage, in the shape of a boot. The sight physically sickened me. Despite everything I knew about Scorpia, I just couldn't understand that someone could do that to a child.

A medic was waiting for us in the helicopter I had insisted we get in case we needed to airlift any injured agents. I wasn't looking at him, but I heard a quick intake of breath when he saw the extent of Alex's injuries. People were climbing in and out, and I could sense them staring at me, but I didn't care. I just held tight on to Alex's hand and prayed for him to be okay. His clothes were covered in blood, but I couldn't tell if it was his or that of the man who he shot.

Alex shifted slightly. "F-Fox?"

"Yeah, Alex, I'm here."

He opened his eyes slightly. "Are you crying?"

I reached up and sure enough, there was moisture rolling down my cheeks. "Um... no?"

"Yes you are. Stop that, it's a bit pathetic." Alex's voice was shaky and cracked, but it was still Alex. Then he frowned. "Fox? Make it stop. Make the pain stop."

I looked up at the medic frantically. "You heard him! Please, do something."

"There's not much I can do except put him under until we get back to London." He shrugged apologetically.

"Do it. Please." Shrugging again, he slid the needle with the anaesthetic into Alex's arms, and I felt him relax as it took effect.

That helicopter ride was one of the worst things I have ever gone through. The medic pointed out that the hand I was clutching had a broken finger on it, and I hurriedly dropped it. I spent the majority of the journey just kneeling next to Alex's stretcher, waiting for us to arrive in London, where I could get Cub proper help. On the way there, I made thousands of promises. Some were to God, some were to myself, but the majority were to Alex. _If he makes a full recovery, I'll never drink another can of beer. If he gets better, I'll start going to church. If you heal, I'll never make you do another boring English lesson. If you end up alright, we can cook whatever you want, no matter how gross it is. If you make it, I'll get you away from MI6, forever. _If, if, if... I fell asleep still thinking of if's and promising anything and everything I could think of.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Thank you for reviewing :D Keep it up please! Chapter 9. Nine is my lucky number, but will it be lucky for Alex? I don't own Alex Rider. He's way too cool for that...**_

Fox

_I sat in the back of the church, boiling in my black suit, but not really caring. Nothing really mattered except the coffin at the front and the boy in it. I stood up and began to walk towards the front, ignoring the looks people gave me. I had to see him, to touch his cheek, just to make sure he was really gone. The walk down the aisle seemed to take an eternity, and I began to run, sprinting towards him. Finally, I arrived next to the coffin, and I leaned over him, studying the boy that when he was alive, had been Alex. There was nothing Alex-like about him now, though. Everything that made him real was gone. I slumped to the floor beside him, wishing it would all go away._

"Mr. Daniels!" I woke up to find a slightly harried looking doctor staring down at me. Looking around, I realised that while I was sleeping, I had collapsed out of my chair and onto the floor.

Jumping up, I straightened my clothes. "Yes, sorry, I'm awake now. Is there any news?"

"He's awake." The doctor smiled. "He doesn't look great, but he's awake and he's asking for you."

_Yes! He was awake! _I grinned at the doctor and followed him to Alex's room. He sat, propped up by a pile of pillows with his leg suspended in the air. As I walked in, he looked up, smiling sadly, but his face was still kind of swollen, so the smile was lopsided.

"Hey Ben."

I pulled up a chair and sat next to him. "Hey Alex. Feeling better?"

"I guess."

"You guess? What's up? Other than the various injuries."

He frowned. "Ben, I killed someone." His voice shook slightly. "I mean, it's not the first time, but I picked up the gun, pulled the trigger, and he died. It doesn't get any easier. Think about it, he probably had a family, and friends, and people who are going to miss him."

Reaching out, I stroked his hair slightly, pushing it out of his face. "This may not make you feel any better, but that man was a killer. He was going to kill me, then he was going to kill you. You saved both of us, and who knows how many more people."

"But he's dead... And it's my fa-"

I interrupted him. "Don't even think about saying 'it's my fault'. It is no one's fault but his. Okay?"

Alex's smile got slightly less sad. "Okay. What did you tell K-unit?"

"That you were in Canada with friends."

He began to laugh. "And they bought that? That's just sad." He winced. "Ow. I really shouldn't laugh."

I jumped up. "Do you want some pain killers? Should I call the doctor in here?"

"No, I think I'm good." He pulled me back down into the chair. "Relax."

"Sorry. But really, have you looked at yourself? It's painful just _seeing_ some of those bruises."

"I'm very sorry my bruises hurt your eyes." Alex rolled his eyes and stuck out his tounge. "Can you get the doctor to tell you the list of all my injuries? They won't tell me and I'm curious."

Laughing, I nodded. "Okay. Lie down and pretend to be half asleep." I rang the call button for the doctor. He came in.

"What can I help you with? Does he need more painkillers?"

"No, we're good on painkillers, I think, but I was wondering, can you give me an accurate list of injuries to make it easier to take care of him?" I put on my best innocent face.

Clearly slightly annoyed at being called in on a pointless mission, the doctor tapped the clipboard at the end of the bed. "It's all on here." He turned and walked out.

Alex sat up, laughing. "You're such a terrible liar. And why didn't I think of the clipboard?" He reached for it, but I grabbed it, holding it out of reach. "Gimme that!"

"Nuh-uh. I'm gonna read it first." I stuck out my tongue, noting that Alex always seemed to bring out the five year old in me. "Okay, let's see..." My mouth fell open at the list. "Wow, Al, you're a wreck. You've got two broken ribs, a broken leg, a broken right ring finger, a possible concussion, a few more bruised ribs, and then bruises covering your entire body. Except your feet. They seem to have left your feet alone." I tried to make light of the list, but I could feel myself shaking slightly. Hanging up the list, I tried to relax.

He sighed. "Well, that's gonna put me out of action for a while. Take _that_ MI6!"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "We need to talk about that, actually."

"But not today. I'm tired." Alex hurriedly pressed the button and a nurse came in to give him some more painkillers so he could sleep.

My phone rang, and I picked it up hurriedly, hoping it hadn't woken Alex up, but he was sleeping like the dead. The simile made me shudder as I thought about how close he had been to making that accurate.

"Hello? Fox, you there?" Eagle's voice rang out from the phone.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry. What's up?"

"Where are you? And wasn't Cub supposed to be back yesterday?" I could hear the impatience in his voice. "I need to get him back for that punch."

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair. "Well... I'm sitting in Cub's hospital room. And I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be punching him right now."

"What? Why is he in hospital?" Wolf's voice broke in to the conversation.

I groaned. "Great, let me guess, Snake is listening too."

"Yes, I am. And I second Eagle's question. Why?"

"He's in hospital because he's injured."

"Wow, thanks Captain Obvious. I don't suppose you can give us any more specific information?" Eagle was obviously rolling his eyes. "How about the name of the hospital?"

"St. Dominic's."

Wolf cheered up slightly. "Okay, cool. We'll be right there."

"Wait, what? No-" The beep signalling the end of the call cut off the rest of my sentence. _Great. The whole gang was coming. _

Around an hour later, K-unit was standing in the room, staring at their youngest member with undisguised horror.

"What happened to Cub?" Eagle voiced the question that was on everybody's mind, and that I really didn't want to answer.

"Um, it's sort of... classified?" I bit my lip, anticipating the reaction I would get. Sure enough, they all started crowding around me, shouting and cursing.

"What do you me-"

"Classified? What kind of-"

"Stop being a moron, and give-"

"Tell us!"

"Seriously? Classified?"

They had me cornered against Alex's bed and I was cringing away from them, then Alex sat up. "Will you losers shut up? You woke me up?" I grinned. _Atta boy, Alex. _He continued. "If Fox says he can't tell you, he can't, okay?" Sulking, he lay back down. Then someone cleared their throat.

"Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to talk to Rider and Daniels alone for a minute." Everyone except Alex and I looked at Blunt, confused as to who Rider and Daniels were. He sighed. "Sorry, I meant Cub and Fox." The rest of K-unit let out a collective 'Ohhhhh' of understanding, and they left the room, shutting the door behind them.

I glared at Blunt. "What do you want?"

"I'm merely checking in on Alex." He smiled, but I didn't let my expression soften.

"I think you've done enough 'checking up' to last Alex a lifetime." I felt Alex stiffen behind me, but I ignored it.

Blunt looked slightly amused, ignoring me. "Alex, do you remember that conversation we had together in my office?"

I turned around in time to see him nod. "Yeah."

"Well, that still applies. I'll leave you now to decide if you want to continue working with us, or if you want to stop. Talk to you soon." He turned and walked out, leaving me to stare at Alex.

"Why don't you just tell him you want to stop this? You can't honestly enjoy doing this!"

"Of course I don't, but-"

"There is no but, Alex!" I stood up, waving my arms around as I spoke. "Why would you even be considering this?"

"You don't understand..."

I stopped and turned to face him. "Then help me understand! Explain!"


	10. Chapter 10

_**Sorry about the apparent cliffy last chapter, I honestly did not do that to be mean. It's more because I was planning on this scene being kinda long, and I wanted to finish that chapter at a reasonable length and post it :) So, again, sorry about, and thank you for being so amazing and reviewing so much! By the way, I'm going to Canada for a long weekend, so I may not be uploading that often, but I'll see what I can do :D **_

Alex

I sighed. This was the one conversation I had really wanted to avoid.

"Fine. I'll explain. MI6 gave me my first mission when I was 14. My uncle was an agent, and when he died, they decided to use me to finish the mission. They needed a teenager to pose as a contest winner, and I had certain skills that made me the best choice for the job apparently."

He interrupted. "Wait, what kind of skills?"

"Karate, rock climbing, extreme stupidity, stuff like that." I glared at him. "Now stop interrupting." He raised his hand and I exhaled heavily. "What now?"

"You still haven't said why you agreed to do it."

"Because you interrupted me. Duh. But anyway, I told them they were crazy of course. I didn't want to do it."

"Good for you!"

"Shut _up!_"

"Sorry." Fox grinned sheepishly. "Carry on."

"Thank you. So, our housekeeper had been taking care of me for several years, and when my uncle died, she was going to keep doing that. Only problem was, she was American, and her visa was expiring. MI6 told me that they would get her a new one if I agreed, but if I didn't, she would have to go back. That's what they've been doing ever since." I paused to take a breath, trying to figure out how best to explain it. "Even once she died, they found something to use against me. You know how I've been slightly... well, disruptive, shall we say, the past few weeks? I was trying to cause enough trouble that MI6 would drop me. It didn't work, and it just put me in an even worse position."

He glanced at me curiously. "How so?"

"Well, they put me with you. Up until then, they didn't have anything they could use against me, not since Jack died. Then, I got close to you guys. That's why I agreed to go on this mission. He told me that he could get me taken away from you, and you guys put in jail. I had to do it." I broke off, mortified to find that my eyes were filling with tears. _God, I am such a wimp. _"I had to."

Fox

"I had to." Alex's final words hung in the air between us, and I wanted to kick myself for shouting at him. And I wanted to do a lot worse than kick MI6 for what they had done.

"Why didn't you tell us?" I sat down next to his bed again, trying to keep my voice down.

He laughed, but it was a bitter, insincere laugh, and it didn't reach his eyes. "Why don't you tell K-unit about your missions? It's classified. Also, it's not like you could have done anything about it. You still can't. They're MI6."

At that moment, I absolutely lost it.

"That is it!" I stood up and practically ran to the door.

Alex grabbed my jacket. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To kick the crap out of Blunt!"

"Whoa, no, you aren't." He pulled harder, trying to get me to sit down again. "That's a really bad idea."

"I don't care!" I finally escaped Alex's hold and headed for the door again.

Alex began to shout, and K-unit came spilling into the room. "Grab him!" Alex ordered. They looked confused, but they grabbed me anyway.

Struggling, I tried to get away, but getting away from three SAS members is a bit trickier than getting away from one bruised and broken teenager. Soon I was back in the chair with Eagle sitting in my lap so I couldn't get up. "Get off of me Eagle."

He laughed and shook his head. "I don't think I'm allowed to."

I craned my neck to look around him at Alex. "Please make him get off of me?"

"Are you going to stay there?" When I avoided his gaze, he sighed and said "Didn't think so."

Wolf joined the conversation. "Yeah, I don't want to be rude or anything, but why is Eagle sitting on Fox?"

Alex sighed and looked at me. "I've told this story one too many times today. You can tell them while I sleep, and Eagle, you get off him. But the second he tries to get up and go punch an MI6 official, sit on him again." He promptly lay down and went straight to sleep.

For some reason, by the time I finished telling the story, I felt calmer about it than I had when Alex told me it. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for the other members of the unit. By the time I was done speaking, I was standing in front of the door, trying to stop a seriously angry group of soldiers from barging through it.

"Guys, what good is attacking Blunt going to do?" I was kind of hoping that reason would work, but when it obviously wasn't, I resorted to emotional blackmail. "You'll upset Alex, and it could slow down his recovery."

Finally, they all began to retreat and calm down. Right up until Alex had a nightmare. I knew he had them most nights, but I had managed to keep it from the rest of K-unit. He began to toss and turn, then he started to moan and cry out. I wanted to wake him up, but according to the doctors, he needed sleep, so we just had to sit there, listening to him. After about ten minutes, I woke him up, figuring that being tired was better than suffering through serious trauma every time you went to sleep. Wolf was pacing the length of the room, muttering some rather creative profanity under his breath and cursing everyone to ever come in contact with MI6. Snake left with Eagle to go get coffee, Alex watched TV, and I sat by him, trying to come up with a solution to the problem.

By the time visiting hours were over, I had come up with precisely zero ideas. Clearly, we needed a group brainstorm. Once we got back to the flat, I sat everyone down and tried to get them to come up with ideas. Eagle was the first to pipe up.

"We could kidnap Cub and like, hide him away from them."

I rolled my eyes. "Thank you Eagle. Good plan. Hide a kid from an organisation of world class spies."

"Just trying to help..."

To my surprise, Wolf had the next idea. "We could expose MI6 to the world. Not like, tell them all the names of the agents, but we could expose their use of Cub. Or we could just threaten to, and then maybe they would leave him alone."

"That actually might work..." We stayed up the rest of the night, trying to think of ways that we could rescue Alex.


	11. Chapter 11

_**Yeah, so sorry this took so long to happen, but I'm still fantastically jet lagged. My head feels... weird. And as you can see from the last sentence, my creativity levels are a bit low as well. I genuinely can't believe weird is the ONLY word I could come up with :P So try and enjoy this, and remember to review, cuz if you don't, I may just cry. And there's nothing more sad than a jetlagged, sobbing, wreck of a teenager. Well there is, but whatever. :) I owe a gigantic thank you to With The What Now. She is a genius! This chapter is basically her brainchild, with a little bit of editing and writing on my part. So, here's the chapter. Don't forget to review please :D**_

Alex

Yawning, I stretched and winced from the pain as I woke up, then I opened my eyes.

"Ahhhh! What the flip are you doing?" I shot backwards about a foot. Fox, Eagle, Wolf and Snake had all been leaning over my bed, grinning slightly psychotically at me. Their smiles got larger as they watched me glaring at them. "Seriously!"

Eagle jumped onto the foot of my bed, narrowly missing my broken leg. "Hey Cub, guess what?"

"What? And watch the leg." There was no way he would leave until he had told me.

"Fox is the man with the plan! And did you know his name is Ben?" He burst out laughing. I turned to Fox. He looked like he'd been hearing jokes about his name for the past twenty-four hours, and I almost decided to let him relax for a minute. Almost.

"Let's hear this magical plan then."

Fox sighed. "Well, first off, do you have any particular objection to being kidnapped?"

"Um, it would depend on who was doing the kidnapping I suppose..." The conversation was taking a rather worrying turn, but I had to admit, I was curious.

"Well, I was thinking that we could be the ones doing the kidnapping, and then we could hide you undercover."

I coughed. "Don't wanna be rude, but I kind of noticed a major flaw in the plan."

"What, that MI6 will find you easily?" He grinned, which I found a bit strange. "The way I see it, there have got to be a lot of people other than us who hate MI6. We can use them to help you stay hid-"

"Wait! You're planning on hiding me with organisations like Scorpia? Are you mental?"

"Not necessarily. In fact, let's just say no for now. I mean people who have been hurt by MI6, but are still good and won't try and use you. At the same time, we can collect information that we can hopefully use against them, so you can come out of hiding. Now I'm not pretending that it won't be hard, and it could be years before anything comes from this, but I promise, we are taking MI6 down. As long as you approve of the plan. Because it sort of requires your co-operation." Fox seemed to realise that he was babbling and broke off, looking slightly flustered. "So..."

I just sat there, looking at him, my mouth hanging open. He bit his lip, and I grinned at him. "It's genius! Well, not genius, but it's better than anything I came up with in a year. So when can we start?"

"First we need to get you out of the hospital, then we need to prepare everything and find you a place to hide at first. So, let's just say two weeks."

Fox

I ran down the hallway of the flat to Alex's room, pounding on the door and cursing our bad luck. Why did they have to be so heartless? We had planned everything around them giving Alex time to heal completely before wanting to see him again, so what do they do? They don't, and call him in the middle of the night.

"Alex! Wake up!" I slammed open the door, shaking him to wake him up. "We need to go!"

He mumbled something, then rolled over, burying his face in the pillow. Impatiently, I grabbed him and shook him again. He opened his eyes. "What?"

"They called. We need to leave now." His eyes opened wide and he clambered out of bed, pulling on clothes and picking up the suitcase that he had packed.

Within half an hour, we were on the road in a crappy car that I had borrowed from a friend. Alex was alternately yawning and craning his head out of the window to make sure we weren't being followed. I laughed at him and pushed him back into the seat.

"Get some sleep Cub." When he looked at me uncertainly, I grinned and ruffled his hair. "I mean it. Sleep."

Alex

Just when I had gotten used to sleeping in K-unit's apartment again, I found myself waking up in another different place. Turning my head to the side, I saw nothing familiar, and I sighed, sitting up.

"Ah, I see you're finally awake." At the sound of the voice, I jumped and looked around again. There was a man leaning against the doorway... and I had no idea who he was.

"Um, hi?" I stood up, walking towards him warily.

"Oh, right, you don't know who I am. I'm George Bulman." He held out a hand for me to shake, and I took it.

"Alex Rider." The night before came to me, and I realised this was probably one of the peoploe who was going to help hide me from MI6. "So how did MI6 screw you over?"

George laughed. "You're direct, aren't you? I like it. I believe you knew my brother, Harry."

I pulled my hand away from him. "You're his brother?" While I tried to avoid hating people other than Scorpia and MI6, (there were too many people that hated me already) Harold Bulman wasn't exactly my favourite person.

"Okay, I know you didn't like him, but hear me out." He sighed, running a hand through his short brown hair. "My brother wasn't the best man out there, but he was my brother, and he didn't deserve to die, and I believe that MI6 played a part in his death. Also, what they're doing to you is just wrong. If I can help you, then I will.

Nodding, I smiled slightly at him. "Okay then. So, how long am I supposed to be here for?"

"Three weeks. Think you can live with that?" He chuckled and slapped me on the back. "Come on. I'll show you around."

"Where's Fox?" I had just worked out what was missing from the scene.

"Who? Oh, your guardian? He had to go. He left you a letter though." George handed me a scrap of paper. I flipped it over and began to read.

_Cub,_

_ Sorry I wasn't there when you woke up. I had to go, to make it harder for them to find you. We'll stop by and see you from time to time, but for now, trust George. He'll help you find the next place. Try not to get properly kidnapped, as I would then have to rescue you again, which was quite tiring last time. Just kidding. See you when I see you, love,_

_Fox_

Sighing, I crumpled up the letter and shoved it in my pocket. I was fifteen, and I didn't need Fox with me everywhere I went. It didn't mean I didn't want him there, but if it made it easier for me to stay out of MI6, then I didn't mind. Turning back to George, I shot him a fake smile.

"Let's go."


	12. Chapter 12

_**Soooo... Thanks for the reviews people :) GUESS WHAT? FIRST EVER 100 REVIEWS! WOOOOO! Sorry, I just had to get that out. I dunno about you guys, but that made me really happy :D See how happy you can make me with just a minute of your time? Ew I sound like one of those infomercials. But seriously, please keep reviewing! And if you read this, include the words 'jaffa cakes' in your review. Just out of curiosity xD **_

Alex

December 24th, 2010

Person: Garcia

Summary: Worked with the CIA up until the age of 71, when MI6 convinced them to fire him as he was too old and was thought to be a liability. Knows several key people in the CIA who could help us.

Sighing, I looked down at my latest journal entry. For the past seven months it had been nothing but janitors and family members of agents who knew less about MI6 than I did. Garcia was the most helpful person we had interviewed by far, and all he had to offer was a few possible CIA contacts. Trying to tear my thoughts away from our lack of success, I looked down to check my watch, then grinned. One of the members of K-unit was coming for Christmas Eve, then leaving in the actual evening. The day afterward, I was being moved to my next safe house.

It was about 11:00 in the morning and they were supposed to get here around 12:30. I still wasn't sure which soldier it was going to be, cuz we had to keep knowledge to an absolute need-to-know basis around here, in case one of us was a traitor. You wouldn't think that applied to me, as I couldn't actually _be_ a traitor without going back to MI6, but apparently logic wasn't a prevailing force with this little group of rebels. After all, they hadn't even chosen a name, and a name was like the most important part of a rebel group. Eagle had suggested 'The Dark Riders' and I came up with 'The Alex Liberation Party', but no one else seemed to find it amusing...

I heard a knock on the door, and Eagle poked his head through.

"Hey, Cub! What are you doing here? I was told there was a hot chick in this room!" He grinned and I rolled my eyes.

"Your sense of humour really hasn't improved at all." I got up and walked over to him, holding out my hand for our handshake.

"Screw that." Eagle snorted and pulled me in for a hug.

Laughing, I hugged him back then pulled away. "Dude, pull yourself together. You're acting like a girl." Secretly, I was glad he hugged me. There wasn't a whole lot of hugging going around in the ranks of 'TALP' as I was secretly labelling us. "So, did you bring me my present?"

"Cub, would I have dared to come if I didn't bring your presents?" When I nodded, he looked at me sceptically. "Really? Just think about it for a second, then answer."

"Okay, maybe not."

"That's what I thought. It would be like... like... like..."

"You can't think of a simile, can you?"

"No."

Laughing, we all sat around the table, eating a pathetic excuse for Christmas dinner. And when I say 'all' I mean me, Eagle, and George. That was it. Eagle's terrible jokes kept us in hysterics though, and nobody seemed to mind the shitty food, so it was all good. Afterwards, I opened my presents, which were just a few new books and cd's, and for a second it almost felt like a normal Christmas. Then Eagle had to leave, and the illusion was shattered.

I leaned over the side of the boat, trying desperately hard not to be sick. I had never thought of myself as the seasick type, but apparently I was. George came up to me.

"How goes it down there?" He looked partially amused, partially sympathetic. Mostly amused though.

I groaned, pulling myself back into a standing position. "Can I go back inside?"

"Please do. Nobody wants you to be sick all over the deck." An unfortunately familiar voice interrupted our conversation.

"Fiona." I turned around slowly. "How... _nice _to see you."

She smirked. "Yes, I'm sure. Especially since you knocked me unconscious the last time you saw me."

I groaned again, and this time it had nothing to do with seasickness. Fiona Friend was one of my least favourite people who hadn't tried to kill me. Very briefly, I contemplated returning to MI6, just to get away from her. "Let me guess, this boat is yours." It was certainly fancy enough.

"Good guess." She said, as she tossed her black hair back over her shoulder. "And sadly, Daddy is making me share with you. The most annoying 14 year old boy on the planet."

Sighing, I resolved to not let her get to me. "I'm 16 actually." It was true. Somehow during the past seven months, my birthday had passed without anyone noticing or celebrating. George and I had some cake, but none of the members of K-unit could join us, as that would have made MI6 a little bit suspicious.

"Really? Because you still look like the same little shrimp you were when we met."

I found that a bit ironic, as I was now about the same height as her, and she was a year older than me. "Well I can assure you, I'm not."

"Whatever." Her dark eyes flashed dangerously and I almost took a step back. "If you even think about knocking me unconscious on this little journey, I will break that handsome face of yours, even if you did save my life."

"Fiona, I'm not going to knock you unconscious. Unless you try and push me off the boat."

"Now why would I do that?"

"I don't know what goes on in your mind. When we met you were calling me a nasty little boy, then you were trying to kiss me or something. I never know which it's going to be." I ran a hand through my hair exasperatedly.

She started moving towards me. "Which would you like it to be?" I turned to look at George, silently begging for help. She moved until she was standing quite close to me. "Well?"

George just stood there, laughing, then turned to go inside. Apparently I was on my own. "Um..." My mind snatched at the first thing it thought of. "What about Rufus?"

"Rufus is history."

"Gotta go! See ya later." _Or not._ I laughed nervously, practically sprinting after George.

I found him stood in the kitchen of the boat, drinking some water.

"Thanks for the help back there!"

"Come on Alex, you've got to learn to deal with these things on your own. I can't be standing beside you fending off every lovestruck teenager to come your way." He chuckled. "Besides, it was hilarious."

"Not to me it wasn't!" I wandered into the living room, collapsed into an armchair and prayed that we would get to wherever we were going soon. This was going to suck.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Sorry, I know I haven't been uploading this as often. I'm also working on two other fanfics and a book, so I'm trying to balance out the time evenly. THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed! It made me happy :D I don't think I like this chapter very much... **_

Alex

I quickly figured out that Fiona wasn't going to leave me alone. Everywhere I went, she found me and tried to flirt with me or annoy me. As a result, I spent one night when I was supposed to be asleep scouting out hiding spots that she wouldn't think to look in. One of these was in the tiny closet by the back of the boat. It was noisy and cramped, but it was Fiona-less, so I was happy. My days consisted of: getting up at some ungodly hour that she would never even consider being awake at, grabbing breakfast from the kitchen, packing a bag full of things I would need for the day, going to my hiding spot and spending the rest of the day reading, listening to my iPod and drawing. I would sneak out once I was sure she had gone to get dinner with George, then go to join them. And I was completely fine with that.

We were four days into the stupid boat trip when she finally found me. Barging into the closet, she squeezed herself into the space next to me, smirking at me.

"Found you. What are you doing in the closet?"

Trying to avoid a confrontation, I gave her the obvious answer. "Drawing." I waved the notebook at her.

"Well you can draw just as well outside the closet, so get up." She said.

I briefly considered resisting, but she knew where I was now, so it was pointless. Pulling myself to my feet, I let her drag me to the living room. "Okay, I'm out of the closet, you can go now."

"Are you _really_ out of the closet though?" Fiona scowled at me and raised an eyebrow. For a second I didn't get it, and then it hit me.

"Wait, did you just suggest that I was gay?"

"Well you have to be!" She stamped her foot. "Why else wouldn't you be interested in me?"

Taking deep breaths, I tried to calm down. "I am not gay! Just because someone doesn't like you doesn't mean they're gay. I'm straight."

"So you don't like me?" She sat down, looking remarkably sad for a girl who seemed to not have feelings. "Not at all?"

"Fiona. I never said I didn't like you."

"So you do!" She smiled at me.

I sighed, sitting down on the other end of the couch. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Does it matter?" Ignoring her, I put in my headphones and started doodling. Pretty soon I felt one of them being pulled out of my ear. "Yes Fiona?

"What are you doing?"

"I'm drawing. What are you doing?"

"I'm watching you draw. Can I see?" She gave me a puppy dog look.

I shrugged. "It's not private."

Smiling, she snatched the paper away from me. "This isn't that bad."

"Oh, thank you. I feel so honoured." I rolled my eyes and picked up a random book off of the bookshelf.

"No, really, I like this one. But not that one. "She pointed to a drawing of a dog and then a rough sketch of a girl. Sabina. I felt a slight stab of regret as I looked at it. Then I ripped out the page and crumpled it up.

"Yeah, neither do I." I tossed it on to the floor and she looked at me curiously. "Who's she? An ex?"

_Sabina's face flashed in front of me. She was on one of her rare visits to England and she was frowning at me. "Why are you doing this?" _

"Alex?"

"_I have to. You know that." I reach out to give her a hug to calm her down, but she pulls away._

"_No, you don't! You're acting like a spoiled child. I get that you're frustrated and angry, but you aren't hurting MI6 by doing all of this stuff." She says, referring to my various run ins with the law. "You're hurting yourself, and I won't let you hurt me as well. It's me or this."_

"Oh, sorry. I guess. It's weird."

"_Sabina, you know I can't choose. I like you, but I can't stop doing this. It's all I've got." I plead with her, trying to stop her from leaving. _

"How so?"

"_Goodbye Alex." _

Kicking the paper, I shrugged again. "I don't really want to discuss it."

To my surprise she went along with it. "Okay, I'll change the subject. When did you start drawing?"

I chuckled. "Probably around the same time as every other kid. When I was in art class at school."

"You know what I mean, you didn't draw for fun when you were staying at my house."

"Well, the guys I was staying with decided to try and teach me, but I refused to do anything that involved being productive. So, we just did art projects, and it turns out it's really relaxing." Taking the book back, I leaned back on the couch, closing my eyes.

I felt a finger poking my side and leaned away. Why did I have to be ticklish? "Get off, Fiona!"

"No, I'm bored, and you're not helping."

"Oh, sorry about that." I opened one eye and scowled at her. "I am trying to ignore you. Please make it easier for me."

"But I'm so bored!" She poked me again. I started squirming then sat up.

Sighing, I decided to talk to her. "Okay, you questioned me, so it's my turn. Why are you on this boat?"

"Well that was direct." She crossed her arms and said "My father is helping you, as you may or may not have guessed, and he's lending you this boat."

"Yeah, I guessed that much, but why are _you _here?"

"I'm here because it would look suspicious if no members of our family were on a boat belonging to our family." Something in her voice made me think that there was more to it than what she was giving me. I raised an eyebrow and she sighed. "Fine, I'll give you the whole story. You're so nosy." The irony of that statement made me snort and she gave me a dark look. "Rufus dumped me, then started parading his new girlfriend around in front of my face. Things got pretty bad, and my father thought I should go away for a while. Happy?"

"Not especially. I can't believe you got dumped. Why would anyone dump you?"

"I know right?" It was such a typical Fiona statement that I burst out laughing, effectively ending all conversation.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Hey, sorry this took a while :P My ideas tend to come at around 12:30 at night, and my mum has been trying to make me go to bed earlier. Ah well. By the way, am I the only one who feels that this story is getting progressively worse with every chapter? o_0**_

Alex

One second I was lounging on the deck of the boat, and the next I was being attacked. I had my eyes shut, but as soon as Fiona screamed, I opened them. She was crouched below the deck railing, looking close to the edge of a nervous breakdown. I stood up, then promptly ducked as a bullet flew past me. Crawling over next to her, I grabbed her shoulders.

"What did you see?"

She looked at me, rocking backwards and forwards. I shook her, and she looked at me. "There are four of them, on jet skis. They have g-guns."

"Thank you. Now give me a sec." Army crawling away from her, I went down below and found the gun that we had stored below. George grabbed it from me.

"Alex, I know you and Fiona don't really get along, but violence is not the answer." He said, half joking.

"Yeah, George, I don't really care. At all. There are thugs on jet skis trying to shoot us, so if you could just deal with that and then make jokes later, that would be great. And if you could deal with that and _not_ make jokes later, well, that would be even better."

George frowned and climbed the steps to the deck. I tried to follow him but he scowled and motioned for me to stay under. Five minutes and six shots later, George stuck his head down below.

"Okay Alex, you're good to come up now." I walked past him over to where Fiona was still crouched.

"Hey, Fi, you can stand up now." When she didn't respond, I sat down next to her. "Or you could sit." She looked at me blankly and I had an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then I noticed that her sleeves were wet. "Did you fall in the water or something?" She shook her head and the bad feeling got a hell of a lot worse. "Talk to me." When I grabbed her hand from where it was pressed against her leg, it came away covered in red. "Oh shit." I pressed my hand back over the spot and screamed for George.

He sprinted to where I was sitting, taking in the situation instantly. "Alex, we can't go back. You'll be caught the second you set foot in a hospital."

"I don't care!" I glared at him. "She's hurt, and losing blood too fast. Fiona could die!" He opened his mouth, but I cut him off. "Don't argue with me! We can save her, and we're going to! I wouldn't _want_ to be free from MI6 if it meant that she was gone and it was my fault. So tell the captain of this stupid boat to head for the nearest hospital."

Sighing, he nodded. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes. Okay, I'll do it. But don't you dare blame any of this on me later on."George went to tell the captain and I kept applying pressure to the place where the bullet had apparently hit her.

"Fiona?"

She turned her head to look at me. "What?"

"Don't die." I almost thought she was about to laugh, but she just slumped back against the side of the boat and closed her eyes again.

Two hours later, I was sitting in the waiting room of a hospital somewhere in Spain, waiting for a doctor who was going to tell me if Fiona was okay. And he was taking much too long to come and tell me. George had gone to fetch some coffee when he finally told me that she would be alright.

She was sitting up in the hospital bed when I went in to see her. I cleared my throat and she glanced up, smiling. "Hey Alex."

"Hey Fiona. How are you feeling?" I mentally kicked myself. 'How are you feeling?' I sounded like some kind of doctor.

Chuckling under her breath, she answered. "I am feeling okay." A slight frown appeared on her face. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" I raised an eyebrow, confused.

"For being shot."

"For being shot?"

"For being shot."

I studied her for any signs of disease. "So, just to clarify, you're saying sorry to _me,_ because I let you get shot."

"Yes. Now we've had to come to the hospital and MI6 are going to figure out where you are and they're going to arrest you or something." She pouted.

"Don't worry about it." I said, despite the fact that I hadn't stopped worrying about it since I found out she would be fine.

"You can sit down, by the way."

"They forgot to give you a chair to have people sit in." I shrugged and leaned against the door frame.

Rolling her eyes, she patted the bed next to her. "Sit down, loser."

"Your wish is my command." I jumped up next to her, stealing her pillow and smirking.

"Hey! Gimme my pillow back!" She reached for it and I held it over my head. "I share my bed with you and this is what I get?"

Laughing, I gave her the pillow back. "How about we share it?"

"Fine, but if you start to hog it, I'm taking it away."

A voice at the door interrupted us. "Alex, how nice to see you again."

"Blunt." I snapped my head towards the door. "What do you want?"

"An ounce of common courtesy. And a chat with you."

"Well I don't particularly feel like giving you either, so you'll have to go somewhere else for it. Why do we always have to have these conversations over hospital beds?" I crossed my arms, locking eyes with him.

"Alex, I could have you arrested right now if I wanted to. Why don't you reconsider your answer?"

Sighing, I nodded. "Fine. Chat away."

"Preferably not in front of your friend."

He gestured at Fiona, sneering, and I felt her stiffen next to me. Oh shit. "Fiona, it's fi-"

"It is not fine! This is my hospital room, and I won't have that... that nasty man walking in and making demands. He can talk here or not at all."

Blunt looked dumbfounded. "Very well, we'll talk here."

"Thank you." She smiled sweetly at him and I almost burst out laughing.

"Nice one." Fiona grinned.

"Alex, MI6 wants you to come back and do another mission."

"Well, Alex doesn't really want to come back and do another mission." I said, fake smiling. "So I guess we're at an impasse."

He sighed and looked at me almost regretfully. "Must we have this same conversation every time? We both know what will happen if you don't work with us, so this is really just a waste of both of our time."

"Fine. Let's skip the threats and the blackmail. What's the mission?"

Blunt smiled, but it was more akin to a shark showing off its teeth than any proper smile I had ever seen. "You'll find that out when you come back to England with me. Which is now. Let's go."

I turned to look at Fiona. To my surprise, she looked close to tears. "No, Alex, don't." Holding her hand, I got off the bed and stood next to her.

"I'll be fine."

Blunt marched forward and grabbed my arm. Then all hell broke loose in the hospital room.

The large window on the other side of the room was smashed through, sending glass everywhere. Blunt fell to the ground, covering his eyes, and I moved in front of Fiona. Something was thrown through the remnants of the window and it began releasing clouds of smoke. Through the haze, I saw a figure clamber into the room. They ran over to me and I prepared to fight. As they got closer, I could tell that they were wearing a ski mask over their face. I swung my leg at the person, knocking them off balance. The figure let out an exasperated hiss and climbed back to their feet.

"Alex you moron, it's me. And I'm trying to rescue you, so stop being an idiot and let's go!"

I stayed in my fighting stance. "Who's 'me'?" They reached up and pulled the mask off, and I almost collapsed in surprise. "Oh. Hey."


	15. Chapter 15

_**Hehehe you were allllll wrong about who 'me' is... I enjoy this. Lots :D Maybe I'm just the tiniest bit evil. I have this amazing idea for this story, but it just won't translate onto the screen, which is bothering me immensely. And it should bother you too, cuz you guys are the ones who suffer through this. So I just want to say THANK YOU. I love you guys :) **_

Alex

"Oh, hey." I rolled my eyes. "That sounded dumb, didn't it?"

Fiona pulled on my hand. "Alex, what's happening? And who is that?"

"We're being rescued. This is Tamara Knight."

Tamara grabbed my other hand. "We need to go. And by 'we', I mean the two of us, not the three of us."

I pulled away and moved back towards Fiona. "You're going to have to take both of us."

"Ugh, fine. Come on."

Picking Fiona up, I followed her to the window. She began to climb down the rope and I gulped. Normally, this sort of stuff would be easy, but if I really thought about it, climbing down a rope out of a third story window while carrying a girl didn't seem like such a good idea. Fiona looked at me, clearly trying to decide if I was insane or not.

"You don't have to carry me. I can climb it."

I almost laughed at the absurdity of the statement. "You have a bullet wound in your leg. There's no way I'm letting you commit suicide at 17."

"I said I would climb the rope, not commit suicide." She snapped. I was about to argue with her, but Blunt came staggering towards us.

"Just get on my back and wrap your arms around my neck. Don't let go." For once, Fiona did as she was told, and I thanked my lucky stars that she'd obviously taken her chill pills that morning.

The climb was a nightmare. Fiona was practically cutting off my air supply, Tamara kept shouting at me, and various windows kept opening with security guards shouting Spanish at us and trying to grab us. By the time we reached the ground, I was so tired I almost passed out, but Tamara grabbed me and practically dragged me onto my feet.

"Get up! We need to go. Now!" I groaned and staggered to my feet. "You'll feel better if you don't carry her around." Tamara said.

Fiona sounded guilty. "Yes, you will. Alex, I think you're going to have to put me down."

"No."

"Just leave me behind."

"No." I shifted her higher up onto my back and signalled to Tamara to start running. She led us down several streets until we got to the harbour. Not pausing for even a second, she took a running leap of one of the docks and onto our boat. I sighed, knowing how much that was going to hurt. Gritting my teeth, I started sprinting for the edge with Fiona clinging to me like I was the last lifeboat on the Titanic. Which I suppose, since we possibly were about to jump into the ocean, was a fairly reasonable analogy. I was about a foot away from the edge when I stumbled slightly, almost throwing myself of the edge. The good news is, I got to the boat. The bad news is, I sort of belly flopped straight into the side of it. I climbed up onto the deck, gasping for air. "Ow."

Fiona climbed off of me, then collapsed next to me. "Nice jump."

"Thank you. I give myself a ten." I wheezed.

"You should probably not try and talk until you aren't winded any more. Because I didn't understand what you just said." She laughed.

Tamara came and stood next to us. "You two need to head below. We're trying to be inconspicuous." She picked Fiona up and carried her down, then came back and sort of dragged me to the stairs and dropped me. "You can walk down the stairs yourself."

"Thanks." I smiled sarcastically at her and slid down them on my butt. Fiona was on the couch when I got down there.

"Slick. Bet that move right there drives the ladies wild."

"You know it." I winked at her and collapsed by her feet. "How's the leg?"

"It doesn't feel shot." She shrugged.

Laughing, I sat up. "Well, I guess that's good."

We were playing poker when Tamara came down. She sat down across from us, just as I beat Fiona. Again. I got up and moved to sit behind Fiona she could stretch her legs out and she leaned back against me, sighing quietly. A strange look flashed across Tamara's face, but figured it wasn't important.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked.

"I heard you might need some help, so I came."

"Well thanks. I was pretty screwed there for a while."

She nodded. "Alex, can I talk to you for a minute?"

I shrugged and got up to follow her into the kitchen area on the boat. Leaning against the counter, I raised an eyebrow at her. "So..."

"Are you dating Fiona?" Tamara asked, her voice flat and seemingly uninterested.

"No." Then an idea hit me. "Wait, are you asking because of... us?"

She looked away. "No."

"Because if you are, you need to know that there isn't an us." I wasn't trying to be harsh, but you know... sometimes you just have to rip the band-aid.

"But there was."

I ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah, but let's face it. It was an idea, more than a reality. You were almost twice my age, and it was never going to work. I went back to England, I got together with Sabina again, and I was happy. You went back to America, and I assume you managed without me."

"Well maybe you're assuming too much."

"You can't just pop back into my life and expect me to drop everything to pursue what was really nothing but a possibility." I shrugged at her and walked back to where Fiona was sitting. "Come on, move over my little cripple." She didn't move. "Okay, I'm sorry, I take it back. You aren't a cripple."

Fiona glanced up at me and her face was blank. "Okay." She stayed exactly where she was.

I sat on the floor next to her. "Fi?"

"Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Okay... If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. But can I sit down?"

"Okay." She moved forward and let me sit behind her so she was almost sitting on my lap, and I just lay back and fell asleep, wondering why my life had to be so weird.

_**I know Alex and Tamara never dated, but I'm trying to extend this story and make it complicated, and I felt that Fiona and Alex were just walking much too straight a path. I'm not in the happiest of moods, and I'm afraid that may be reflecting into my writing. Sorry about that :) The Alex/Tamara thing is playing off of the moment in Skeleton Key (I think) when she held his hand briefly. I know, it's not great. I don't have the books to hand right now, so if any characters are off, just let me know so I can fix them. Thank you :)**_


	16. Chapter 16

_**Wow, I'm really getting the feeling that you guys don't like Alex/Tamara. But that's okay, because I don't either. I just needed a rescuer, and I needed a problem for Fiona/Alex, so I figured 'Let's make the rescuer a girl!' Sorry about that xD I'm also sorry that there isn't much action in this chapter. But, on the upside, it's longer than usual, and it's being posted before midnight UK time, so... YAY!**_

Alex

I woke up with a pain in my neck and a dead leg. Sitting up, I figured out why. Fiona was lying on it and I had been sleeping at an awkward angle.

"Ow." I shifted out from underneath her and stood up. Tamara walked in to the room.

"Go make yourself presentable. We're here." She turned and walked away, then stopped. "And Alex?"

"Yep?"

"I'm not mad at you. I get it. I was just being stupid, and I'd rather be your friend than your girlfriend." Tamara smiled hesitantly.

I grinned back. "Sounds good to me."

Fifteen minutes later, we were all stood on the deck as the boat docked. I looked around, confused, and tried to figure out where we were. The second the boat was secure, I jumped off, then turned to help Fiona get off, but to my surprise, Tamara got there first.

"Okay..." Shaking my head, I turned and started to walk towards the amazing beach nearby. It had been ages since I had been to the beach. Dodging tourists, I headed straight for the water, standing where it met the sand. Pretty soon, Tamara and Fiona got there too and started lecturing me about ditching them.

Ignoring the lecture, I turned and smiled brightly at them. "So... Where are we going?"

"We're going to see my dad," Fiona said. I raised an eyebrow, but didn't argue. Tamara put me in charge of getting Fiona around, and she led us to where a taxi was waiting. We squished in the backseat and I spent most of the journey sticking my head out the window, trying to get some hint of where we were. When the cab stopped, the driver spoke Spanish, so that narrowed it down a bit. That plus the distance from Spain... I guessed it was either the Balearic Islands, or possibly we had just gone to another part of Spain. The taxi pulled up outside a large villa with whitewashed walls, and I turned to look at Fiona.

"Let me guess, this is your family's villa?"

"Actually, I think we're renting it." She shrugged and climbed out, hobbling towards the front entrance. Chasing after her, I picked her up. "Put me down Alex. I can walk."

I snorted and kept carrying her. "Barely. Besides, it's my fault that we left before you could get your crutches. So for now, call me Crutches."

"I'm not calling you that. It sounds stupid, and it reminds me of Crooks from 'Of Mice and Men'. I hate that book."

"Why? Too boring?"

"No. Too sad." I looked at her, smiling and she folded her arms. "What?"

I shrugged and looked away. "I thought so too." I was about to say something else about our least favourite book, but I was interrupted by the arrival of Sir David Friend. The normally composed man looked rather confused at the sight of me walking towards his villa carrying his daughter bridal style. I coughed and tried not to blush. "Hello Sir."

"Hello Alex. Fiona. What on Earth are you doing?" The sun glinted off his glasses and his mouth fell open. "Good lord, you haven't somehow gotten married, have you?"

Fiona laughed at him. "Alex was just helping me get in the house so I could say hello to my favourite family member."

"Good try. Why do you need helping into the house?" Now that he knew that we hadn't eloped, he seemed much calmer, and I decided that now would be a good time to speak up.

"She got shot."

His face turned a rather interesting shade of red and if it wasn't so scary, I would have laughed. Fiona broke in, giving me a look that clearly said 'I'll kill you later'. "Actually, a bullet grazed my leg. I wasn't actually shot." This did nothing to improve her father's colouring, so I started to put Fiona down so I could prepare to run. "Alex saved me. He slowed the bleeding and then he made the captain turn the boat around and go to the nearest hospital."

Sir David Friend looked at me and smiled slightly. "Well, it appears you've saved my daughter's life three times now." Three times? I scrolled through all of my memories, but I could only remember two.

"She's exaggerating. I didn't do that much." I shrugged, almost knocking Fiona off balance. "Oh, sorry Fi."

"Well, let's not just stand out here! Let's head inside and you can get settled before we get down to talking about business." He led us inside, showing each of us to our rooms. I found clean clothes hanging in the closet of mine, and I grabbed a different shirt to put on, as mine had somehow managed to get wet in the hour since I put it on. The door of my room slammed open as Fiona hopped inside, I whirled around, freaking out that it was another murder attempt. She held up her hands, balancing on one leg.

"It's only me!" She said, then she fell over. "Damn it!"

I rushed over to help her up. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She gave me a look and I realised that I wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Oh, right." I helped her to the bed, then pulled the clean shirt over my head. When I looked back at her, she was still giving me the look. "What? I put on the shirt."

"You have a lot of scars."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "So you were checking me out?"

"No! You were just sort of right in front of my face." She blushed and I laughed.

"That's okay, if I were you, I would check me out too." I winked at her and she scowled.

"You suck. But seriously, where did all of those come from?"

"Missions." I sighed. "Let me guess, you want details."

She smiled slightly. "Only if you want to share."

Shrugging, I lifted up my shirt and pointed to the scar right above my heart. "That one is from when I was shot by a sniper." She gasped and I kept going. For each scar, I gave her a quick summary. I did about ten, then I stopped. "So there you have it. I'm not going to tell you about all of them, cuz we would be here for a while."

"Wow." She looked at me, clearly worried about something.

"What's up?"

"Nothing."

I sighed again. "Seriously? I've just given you my the history of like ten scars, and all I get in return is 'nothing'?" Laughing, I sat down next to her. "Come on... Tell meeeee."

"I was trying to decide if I should tell you what actually happened with Rufus." She said. "I think I will." Fiona was about to tell me, but the door opened again and Tamara stuck her head in.

"Hey guys, it's time to discuss the plan." I got up and gave Fiona a 'tell me later' look before helping her up. She smiled, looking relieved.

We all sat around a table, simultaneously eating and discussing the topic 'what to do with Alex'. I mostly just sat there, listening and chewing on a piece of bread.

"So, as you probably know, there is a new candidate running for prime minister this year. As of right, now it's looking very likely that he will win. And he's much more sympathetic to your plight than the current prime minister, and could probably help you. But, this is all depending on him winning the election and then choosing to help. And the election won't take place for another month, so you're going to have to stay in hiding up until that point. Our other option is to try and get Alan Blunt sacked as the head of MI6. You've mentioned that his second in command, Mrs. Jones, seems slightly guilty about using you like that. Well, Blunt should be retiring in, say, five years. Once that happens, you will hopefully just fall through the cracks and we'll be able to stop them from using you again."

I stared at him. "So I'm either hidden for one month or around five years."

"Yes." He smiled apologetically. "Those are really the only options we've got at the moment."

"So where am I going to be hiding out?"

"Well, it's really up to you, but the general thought was that you would stay here."

"That works for me." I nodded, then reconsidered. "But I would kind of like to know where 'here' is."

"Oh, of course. You're on a smaller island in the Balearic Islands."

That made sense. I thought about it for a second then nodded again. "Sounds good. So who's going to be here with me?"

Tamara shook her head. "Nope, not me."

"I will be for about a week, and Fiona will be staying for the entire month, maybe longer, because of-"

"Dad!" Fiona broke in, glaring at him.

He looked at her quizzically, then held up his hands. "Okay. Anyway, you'll have a few guards, but we aren't expecting much trouble."

"I'm sure I'll cope." I said, trying to end the conversation.

After dinner, I excused myself, and went for a walk. It was getting dark, and I wandered out into the backyard of the house. There was a pool, with several deck chairs, but I was more interested in the trees. Grabbing one of the branches, I pulled myself up, climbing until the branches got too thin to hold me. Standing at the top of the tree, I looked around, trying to figure out what I was doing.

"Alex." A voice startled me and I fell off the branch I was standing on, grabbing another one to stop myself from falling. "Oh, sorry, I thought you saw me coming."

"It's fine." I said, dropping down out of the tree in front of Fiona's father, making him jump. "Sorry, I'm coming inside now. I just wanted a minute to think."

"I understand." We walked back to the house together and then parted ways. I went back to my room and went straight to sleep, completely forgetting about the conversation I was supposed to have with Fiona.

_Fiona was running away from something, coming straight for me. She was bleeding and had cuts and bruises all over her. Collapsing into my arms, she looked up at me, with tears streaming down her face, eyes wild. "This is all your fault." _


	17. Chapter 17

_**Sorry, I meant to upload this yesterday, but I decided to update Beautiful Mess instead. This story is at 129 reviews, only 21 away from 150! Yay! Anyways, I really appreciate everyone who has been reading this and reviewing, and I just wanna say, you guys are amazing. **_

Alex

_This is all your fault..._ _The words lingered in the air as she died in my arms. I screamed, unsure of what I was saying, but saying it anyway. Then she opened her eyes again, and spoke once more. 'Wake up!' What? She repeated it._

"Alex, wake up!" My eyes snapped open to see Fiona bending over me, shaking me and looking terrified.

"I'm awake." I gasped, trying to steady my breathing. "I'm fine." The words seemed to calm her, but in truth, I wasn't sure if I was saying them for her or for me.

She nodded and moved to sit on the end of my bed. "What happened?"

"It was just a dream." Shrugging, I lay back down, but she kicked my leg under the sheets.

"I know it was a dream. What I don't know is why it scared you so much."

"It didn't scare me." I tried to act nonchalant, but I don't think I pulled it off. "Why would you think I was scared?"

"Well generally when someone is screaming, they're scared." She rolled her eyes, then softened her expression slightly. "And you were screaming."

"Oh." The word hung in the air between us, and I shifted uncomfortably. Yep, I definitely wasn't managing to look nonchalant.

Fiona sighed again. "So? What was the dream about? You don't need to be afraid to tell me."

"I'm not afraid!" I snapped at her, then immediately regretted it. "I'm sorry, this is just not something I normally talk about with people."

She tilted her head to the side, then hesitantly spoke. "I have them too, you know. Nightmares, I mean."

"Really?" Fiona had never struck me as the type of girl to be afraid of much.

"Yes. They're awful, but they're just dreams." Her eyes locked straight on mine. "I still need to tell you about Rufus."

I had completely forgotten about that, but it came back to me. "Yeah, you do."

Biting her lip, Fiona looked away, then back at me. "Rufus didn't just dump me. He cheated on me, and then as soon as I found out, he broke up with me before I could confront him." She took a deep breath before continuing to speak. "That was just one of a lot of things going on in my life at the time, and when they all combined, I simply wasn't tough enough to deal with it. I started mixing with the wrong sort of people, and then I gradually pulled away from them and the rest of the people I knew." Clearing her throat, she carried on, nervously pulling at her hair. "Alex, I tried to kill myself."

I just stared at her. And stared. And stared. Finally, I figured out that I was supposed to say something. "I'm sorry." She smiled slightly.

"It's fine. I'm better now, I just figured I should tell you. That was the third time that you saved my life. If you hadn't needed that boat, then I wouldn't have been on it, and I probably would have tried again. You made me get that life is what you make of it." The smile faded, and she looked at me anxiously. "Do you hate me?"

"What?" I half laughed, but it got caught in my throat at the sight of her pale face floating in the dark, contrasting with her hair and eyes. "Fiona, I don't hate you. I don't know if I could. Do you want to know what I was screaming about? I was screaming because in my dream, I was sure that I had lost you." I looked away, slightly embarrassed about having just told this gorgeous girl why I was screaming like a baby.

Fiona moved over to sit by me, then she reached out and touched my shoulder. "You didn't. I'm still here." We sat there like that for what felt like hours, then I moved in towards her, cupping her face in one hand, finally about to kiss her. And then, just like every time something went right in my life, it all went wrong again.

A scream sounded from down the hallway, and I leaped out of bed, almost slamming into Fiona.

"Stay here." I slipped through the open door and into the corridor, as quietly as I knew how. A shadow was coming out of a doorway near the end, and I made my way towards it. I was about ten feet away when the owner of the shadow stepped through and spotted me. Crap. The light from the room glinted off an object in it's hand, and I repeated my earlier thought. Crap. He/she had a knife. They charged at me, and I ducked inside the nearest room, hoping they would fall for it.

Sure enough, the person came racing down the hall and turned straight into the room, not even considering that it might be a trap. Instead of actually going into the room, I had just stepped through the doorway, so as they came running through it, all I had to do was take a swing at them. The punch sent them staggering backwards, but they hopped straight back up and came at me again, waving the knife wildly. Soon, I was being driven backwards, and I found myself pressed with my back against a table. Ducking backwards, I ended up actually lying on the table. They stabbed down with the knife and I dodged to the side, kicking my leg up between theirs, hoping that the figure was a man. She wasn't, and she barely flinched at the blow. The knife came down again, narrowly missing my shoulder as I jerked sideways. Both of us knew that the next try was likely to be the last. She raised her arm once more, then seemed to slump to the ground, knife still in hand.

Confused, I leaped off of the table. Fiona stood there, holding a marble statue of a cat that had been on a table in the hall. It took me approximately thirty seconds to realise what had happened, then I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"What happened to 'stay here'?"

She scowled at me. "What happened to common courtesy? Isn't it normally polite to say thank you when someone saves your life?"

"Thank you. But I had it." I lied, checking the body to see if she was unconscious.

"Oh, is that what they're calling 'almost dying' these days? Having it?" Fiona bent down next to me. "Is she awake?" Noticing something that I didn't want her to see, I tried to pull her away, but she resisted. "Wait, she isn't breathing." She stepped back, stumbling, and almost fell thanks to her hurt leg. "She's not breathing!" A sob escaped her lips. "Alex, I k-killed her!" I pulled her in, hugging her to me.

"It's okay. She would have killed us, and you didn't do it on purpose."

"But she's still dead!" Fiona cried.

I thought about what I was feeling when I shot that man who had tortured me. "I know. But it's not your fault. It's hers." Stroking her hair, I let her cry into my shirt. Someone walked into the room, and I spun around, but it was only her father. He looked around incredulously.

"What happened?"

Fiona let go of me and stumbled towards him. "Daddy. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to!"

Silently, I sat on the floor next to the body of the woman who had tried to kill me and surveyed the damage, thinking about what I had said to Fiona. I was telling the truth when I said it wasn't her fault, but I was lying when I said that it was the assassin's. In reality, it was my fault. Just like Fiona had said it was in my dream.


	18. Chapter 18

_**CHAPTER 18! There isn't actually anything particularly special about chapter 18, but I'm hyper. My baby cousin is visiting right now, and he is just sooooo cute! It's crazy. Anyway... Please keep reviewing! I would seriously like to reach 150 reviews before the end of the story. Also, I don't have any plans for my next fanfic, so if you want me to write one for something other than A.R, carry on and let me know. If I've read/watched it, I'll write about it. If it looks good and I haven't read/watched it, I will if you recommend it :) Even if you have a depressed little plot bunny sitting in the corner waiting to be used but you don't feel like writing it, send me a message, include it in your review! Basically, what I write next is up to you. So start thinking about it :D**_

Alex

I slipped out of the room, walking down the hall, though I didn't know where to. Then it struck me. I had been alerted to the attack by a scream, and it was unlikely that the assassin was the one to let me know she was here, so it had to have been someone else. And the only female other than Fiona staying in this part of the house was... Tamara. I broke in to a run, skidding through the door at the end of the corridor.

She was lying face down on the floor, looking like someone had just tossed her to the side like a broken toy. And there was red. Lots of it. Enough of it to tell me that I was too late. I went numb and collapsing to the ground next to her. It was all happening again, just like the last time. As I slumped down next to her, images flashed in front of my eyes. Tamara, Jack, Tamara, Jack. Dead, alive, dead, alive. They all began to blur together until I could feel was pain and guilt.

I don't know how long I sat there for, but when the images finally began to fade, the sun had come up and was streaming through the windows of the villa. The light was the first thing I became aware of, and the second was a pair of arms wrapped around my chest. Fiona had come in sometime during the night and had sat down next to me, hugging me and waiting for me to come back to reality. I was about to hug her back, and then I realised that this gory, depressing life may be my reality, but it wasn't Fiona's. She didn't have to live through any more of this.

Shrugging her off, I avoided looking at her and headed straight to my room. Opening the closet, I grabbed my backpack and began to shove everything I owned inside of it. A hand touched my arm, but I just moved away and continued to pack.

"Alex." Fiona said, standing next to me, but I kept looking down. "What are you doing?" I didn't bother to answer. She was smart, she knew what I was doing. "Are you... leaving?"

"I have to." I had almost finished, and I picked up the bag, moving to the other side of the room.

"Bullshit." Her voice was so cold that I finally glanced up. She was glaring at me with tears streaming down her face.

Those tears almost broke me, but I stayed strong. "You'll be better off without me."

"How can you say that?" Fiona threw up her hands. "You saved my life!"

"If it wasn't for me, your life would never have been in danger."

She grabbed my hand with both of hers. "Stop. Just stop. You don't know what you're talking about."

"No, you don't know what you're talking about. Everywhere I go, people get hurt trying to protect me." My voice cracked, and I angrily brushed away the tears that were forming in my eyes. "It would be safer for everyone if I had just never been born."

Fiona laughed, and I glanced up, startled into looking at her again. "I'm sorry, I know this isn't the right time to be laughing, it's just so stupid that I almost have to. Think of all of the people you've saved! Thousands, maybe millions of people would be dead if it wasn't for Alex Rider."

"But Jack would still be alive, and so would Tamara, and countless other people." Saying their names brought back another wave of memories, and I sat down on the bed, burying my head in my hands. "It's all my fault."

She put her hands on either side of my face and made me look at her. "Alex, Tamara's death wasn't your fault, and I highly doubt that this Jack person's was either."

"Don't you get it? They were both killed trying to protect me, by people who were trying to kill me. Not them, me."

"Last night, I killed someone, and you wouldn't let me blame myself for it, but here you are, blaming yourself for the deaths of two people who you never harmed." Sighing, she shook her head. "It's not your fault." Somehow, those four words, an eerie echo of our conversation last night, managed to make me feel infinitely better. I felt the tears threatening to spill over, but this time I didn't brush them away. I just let them fall, pulling Fiona in and hugging her so tightly that I wasn't sure if she could still breathe. Worried, I started to move my arms away, but she just held me tighter. "Don't let me go. Not now, not ever."

We were sitting on my bed, leaning against the wall and just letting the silence wash over us when I decided that I needed to tell her about Jack. It was the first time I had ever even considered telling anyone the whole story.

"I want to tell you about Jack."

She shifted so that we were facing each other. "Okay, I'm all ears."

"Jack was my uncle's housekeeper. When he was killed, she took care of me, and we were basically family. Then, one day, something a lot like what you just lived through happened. An assassin, probably from Scorpia, broke in, trying to kill me. Jack happened to get in the way, trying to stop them, and the next thing I knew, she was dead. It gave me time to grab a weapon and save myself, but she was gone."

"That's terrible!" Fiona hugged her herself, shuddering. "So what did you do?"

"I carried on living in that same house by myself, and I made it my goal to get the hell out of MI6."

Nodding, she considered something, then decided to share. "That makes sense. I mean, it makes the way you reacted to this more logical."

I rolled my eyes. "Well, as long as my reaction was _logical_..."

"Shut up Alex." She stuck out her tongue at me, then got off of the bed. "I'm hungry. You want a sandwich?"

"I'll get it. You stay here and rest your leg." Humming slightly to myself, I wandered towards the kitchen, not paying attention to anything. I searched through the cupboards until I found some peanut butter and white bread, then started making two sandwiches.

"Hey there Cub." A voice interrupted my sandwich-making, and I jumped about a foot before whirling around. I knew that voice.

"Wolf! Eagle! Snake! Fox!" I stood there, staring at them with my mouth open and a jar of peanut butter in my hand.

Eagle started laughing. "Look at him, he's so happy to see us, he's speechless!" For once, he wasn't far from the truth. "You should probably shut your mouth now. You're starting to look a bit stupid."


	19. Chapter 19

_**I am a very happy bunny. And I seriously love All Time Low :') Actually, music in general is sort of super awesome. Got my science GCSE results yesterday (the first two parts at least). SO glad that's over. Science is a bummer. Only one more year to go! Sorry this took so long to get written. I'm a very very very evil author. Feel free to shout at me. But please don't ;D Not much happens in this chapter, but I felt like writing K-Unit randomness, so...**_

Alex

I closed my mouth and put down the peanut butter.

"This coming from the man who couldn't spell 'muffin'."

Eagle pouted. "It's tricky. How am I supposed to know how many f's are in muffin?"

Rolling his eyes, Wolf put Eagle in a headlock and covered his mouth. "What he's trying to say is: Hey Alex, it's good to see you. We missed you." Eagle mumbled something, and he smacked him. "He's just excited to see you." Letting go of him, he let him slide to the floor.

I was about to laugh, but then I was smothered in a hug from Fox. "Um, dude? What are you doing?" Just as I was about to pull away, I felt another person join in. Then another, and another. "Guys. I love you, I really do. But I can't breathe and this is really awkward." One by one, they pulled away, coughing and deliberately looking at anywhere other than each other. "So... What are you doing here?"

Wolf jumped at the chance to change the subject. "I bet you're wondering what we're doing here."

"Well, yes, I was. That's what I _just_ said."

"Okay, I was just clarifying. Plus, I feel it adds dramatic effect." He looked away sheepishly.

"I don't think he cares overly much about the dramatic effect as long as you answer the question." Snake pointed out.

"Fine." Wolf scowled. "We're here to stop anyone else from getting stabbed."

I would have laughed, but Tamara's death was still a bit too close for me to laugh at any sentences involving the words 'stabbed', 'knife' or 'death'. Besides, Eagle was laughing enough for all of us. "You know, I don't think that whole dramatic effect thing really works. Good speech though. Short and sweet."

"Eagle. _Shut up._" Everyone chimed in on the last part, and he assumed his 'wounded puppy dog face'.

"That was hurtful."

This was starting to follow a familiar pattern, and I decided to stop it before it got out of hand. "Nobody gives a shit."

A laugh startled all of us, and I glanced towards the kitchen door to see what K-Unit was staring at. Fiona stood in the doorway, stifling a giggle with her hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt! You were just taking a while with the sandwiches, and..."

I smiled at her and reached out to grab her hand, pulling her towards me. "It's fine. These are some friends of mine, I suppose. I'm not really sure what to call them. They're the guys I was living with."

Turning towards K-Unit, I gestured to her. "K-Unit, this is Fiona. Fiona, this is..." I broke off as I realised I wasn't sure what to call them.

Ben smiled and put out a hand. "I'm Ben."

Snake followed suit. "Ryan."

Wolf sighed, muttering something. Eagle asked him to repeat it. "Brian."

Grinning wickedly, Eagle proceeded to tease him. "Brian? Don't get me wrong, it's a fine name. It just isn't very soldiery. Or scary."

"Well what's your name?" Wolf shot back.

He went rather quiet. "Jamie." I started laughing and he glared at me. "What?"

"Isn't Jamie sort of a girly name?" He scowled at me and jumped on me, trying to wrestle me to the ground, but I dodged behind Wolf, who wasn't looking particularly pleased with Eagle at that particular moment.

Fiona cleared her throat. "Boys! It's very nice to meet you. Alex, do you still want this sandwich, or should I eat both of them?"

I popped back out of hiding. "I'm coming! Guys, go make yourselves at home, I guess. You should talk to Fiona's dad."

Fox

Sir David Friend had contacted us at around midnight last night, going on about an attack and knives and a large amount of other things. Two hours later, we were on our way to the airport, and we arrived at the villa early in the morning. I wasn't really sure where we were supposed to go, so we just headed inside and wandered around until we found someone. Alex was standing in the kitchen, humming tunelessly to himself, conveniently masking the fact that we were sneaking up on him.

"Hey there Cub." I said, trying to hide a grin as he jumped. There were several other things I wanted to say, but then Eagle started being stupid, as usual, and we somehow ended up having a giant group hug, which was awkward. Pulling away, I let go, faking a coughing fit to cover the fact that I think I had turned bright red.

You would have thought that after a hug would be a time when normal, polite, conversation flourished. Well, not if the hug had been with the members of K-Unit. Everyone immediately fell back into bickering and play fighting, up until the arrival of a rather pretty girl in the kitchen doorway. Alex reached out and took her hand and smiled at her like she was the only person in the universe, clearly having no idea about the look he was giving her. I could practically feel K-Unit making mental notes to tease him unmercifully about it later.

It turned out that the girl was Sir David Friend's daughter, Fiona. After all the necessary introductions, she walked off somewhere into the depths of the house with Cub trailing after her. Rolling my eyes at the sight, I decided to go with Snake to find Fiona's father, leaving the other half of K-Unit in the kitchen. Which turned out to be... not the world's best idea. When I came back, Wolf was tied to a chair and Eagle was gorging himself on whatever he could find in the cupboards. I growled, walking over to Wolf, knocking Eagle off his seat on the counter as I passed.

"How did you lose?"

Wolf glanced up at me, confused. "What?"

"You're tied to a chair. I can only assume Eagle beat you in a fight."

"No, I didn't. I just sneaked up on him while he was eating a sandwich." Eagle grinned triumphantly, sticking his tongue out at Wolf, who I had unfortunately just untied. The next thing he knew, Wolf was sitting on him.

I sighed, and after pulling them apart, I sat down at the table and dropped my head into my hands. "Is it the sea air that makes you so..?"

"Charming?" Was the word that Eagle supplied.

"Annoying." Snake chipped in. Pointing at him, I snapped my fingers.

"That's the one. Annoying." I rolled it around in my mouth. "Eagle is annoying."

Wolf nodded grimly. "Truer words were never spoken."


	20. Chapter 20

_**I AM SO SORRY! This was not my fault. I keep all my fanfic writing on my netbook, and my power cord broke, and it took like a week to get a new one :/ Sorry people. Has anyone come up with anything that they want me to write for my next fanfic? If not, no worries, I've got it covered :) So this is probably the second to last, maybe third to last, chapter, and I believe we're at 145 reviews. This sounds super selfish, but please please please please can I have five more? :) It would be the first time I'd ever reached 150, and you have NO idea how much it would mean to me. Just think about it :)**_

Alex

Fiona went with her father to say goodbye before he got on the boat that would take him back to Spain and to the plane that would take him back to England. I was sitting on my bed, reading a book when I heard a floorboard creak and my head shot up. It was just K-unit, and I relaxed once I knew it wasn't another assassin. Well, I relaxed up until I noticed their expressions. Every single one of them had an evil glint to their eyes, the kind of evil glint that says 'you're going to regret not locking your door'.

"Hey there Cub." Snake grinned, in the manner of a cat grinning at a mouse.

"Hi..."

Eagle jumped in. "So... Fiona, huh?" He winked at me. I could feel my face starting to get hot and I had an awful feeling that I was blushing.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I denied.

"Sure you do." It was Wolf's turn. "You can admit it Alex, we won't laugh." Yes they would.

Fox nodded sincerely. "We won't."

I groaned. "If I tell you what you want to hear, will you leave?"

Shrugging, he smiled softly. "Probably not."

"But think of it this way. If you don't tell us, we'll never leave, whereas if you do, at some point within the conceivable future, we may be convinced to depart." Eagle finished Fox's phrase for him.

"Wow, Eagle, you used a big word! Maybe they'll finally let you graduate kindergarten now!" I tried to distract them by starting another argument, but they weren't having it.

He shrugged off the insult and sat down next to me. "Come on Cub, just tell us the truth."

I simply couldn't take it any longer. "_Fine!_ I like Fiona! Happy?" I probably shouldn't have expected anything less from a group of men with the maturity level of a class of ten year olds, but for some reason, I hadn't expected them to start laughing. Even Wolf, who was supposedly one of the more grown up guys, was literally rolling around the floor in hysterics, while Eagle and Snake were belting out the lyrics to the 'K-I-S-S-I-N-G' rhyme.

"Alex and Fiona, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G! First comes love, then..." They wouldn't stop, and I looked over at Fox for any amount of support I could get. He was leaning against the wall, chuckling happily. I threw a pillow at him.

"A little help?"

He dodged, still laughing. "I don't think there's much I can do. Just plug your ears. They'll leave when they get hungry."

I collapsed back on to the bed, pulling a pillow onto my face. "I hate you guys."

"But you loooooove Fiona!" Wolf stopped laughing long enough to choke out the words, before collapsing again.

The next month passed in a blur of teasing, laughing, kissing Fiona, and spending a lot of time doing absolutely nothing, broken only by the occasional attack from members of groups I had annoyed or a kidnapping attempt from MI6. K-Unit handled these easily, and eventually, they stopped happening. On the day the election results were announced, we were all squished together on the couch in front of the TV, watching the news while Fox translated from Spanish to English. I think it was supposed to seat four people at max, but K-unit doesn't exactly spend a lot of time following rules.

News had been trickling in all day, but this was supposedly going to be the official announcement, and we were all freaking out. Eagle was grumbling about how he wanted popcorn and kept standing up and sitting down, about to make some, but not wanting to miss it. When the announcement finally came on, I think I may have blacked out for a second, because one second I was crushed between Fiona and Fox, then the next, I was lying on my back on the floor, with everyone screaming and dancing around me. Fox dropped to his knees next to me.

"Alex, he won!"

I sat up. "You mean..." I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"Well, we still have to talk to him, and it's not 100% certain, but yes, this most likely means that you're free. No more stupid Alan Blunt, no missions, no more scars!" He picked me up and started running around the room with me slung over his shoulder.

Once he put me down, I had to deal with everyone charging at me and doing some kind of ridiculous celebration. After about ten minutes, it had died down a bit, but it still hadn't sunk in. Everyone was so sure that everything would be okay now, but I had thought that too many times in the past two years to believe it now. I wanted to believe it so badly, but a part of me just kept thinking that it was too good to be true, and that I was an idiot for ever believing that I could be free of MI6. But at that moment, I wanted to stop thinking and just be happy, so I shoved that part to the back of my mind, wishing it would stay there.


	21. Chapter 21

_**Sorry this took forever :) I'm afraid there's really no excuse this time. Writer's block sucks :P Forgive me? I feel so so so guilty for abandoning all of you for a while, but I'm back now. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 150 REVIEWS! Love you guys :) **_

Alex

I tugged nervously at the collar of the dress shirt Ben had insisted I wear. Normally, I would have just said 'over my dead body' and gone in a t-shirt, but I figured it was probably important to suck up to these people, considering they were in charge of my future. Shaking my head, I tried to avoid thinking about all the things that could happen. Eagle elbowed me.

"Stop twitching! You look like a nervous little rabbit."

Fox glared at him. "It's fine. He's allowed to be nervous. You okay, Cub?"

"I would be a lot better if you two didn't keep contradicting each other."

They were sitting on either side of me in the backseat of the car we had rented specifically for this visit, and they had been arguing for the entire journey to the place we were meeting the prime minister. Yeah, that's right. Alex Rider, (hopefully soon-to-be ex-) teen super spy, is going to visit the prime minister. Along with four of his best (and only) friends, who happen to be adults with the maturity level of children.

"Sorry Cub." They chimed in unison.

Eagle scowled. "Seriously? I was gonna say that!"

"And?" Fox shrugged and I smacked him, then turned and punched Eagle as well.

"What is wrong with you two?"

Thankfully, I was saved from any further discussion when the car stopped. We all piled out, Snake and Wolf clearly as grateful as I was for a break from the non-stop arguing. Ducking away from Fox before he could try and fix my hair, I took one last deep breath, then headed into the building.

We were ushered into a plain, yet somehow expensive looking, room, and told to have a seat and that the prime minister would be with us shortly. About a minute later, the door opened again, and it took every ounce of self control I had not to whirl around to see who it was. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alan Blunt sit down in a chair next to Fox. All of K-unit seemed to tense, and I felt myself start to shake slightly. What was I so scared of? We were about to have a meeting with the prime minister. What could Blunt _possibly_ do to me?

"So, Alex, how have you been?" He was acting like I had merely gone on holiday, rather than left the country to get away from him. I almost couldn't believe my ears.

"Just swell, thanks!" Shaking myself, I snapped back a reply, accompanying it with a sarcastic smile.

"That's good. Aren't you going to ask how I've been?"

My mouth dropped open, and I stood up, turning to face him. "No, I am bloody well NOT going to ask you how you've been! Would you like to know why? Because you're a manipulative, cruel, heartless bastard. And I don't like you."

Blunt smiled at me, that same old smile, the one that was more like baring his teeth than actually smiling. "There's something you're forgetting, dear boy. I made you. And as we've discussed so many times before, I can break you, and everyone and everything you care about. The Alex Rider I know would never let that happen."

"T-the Alex Rider _you _know?" I started to talk, stammering slightly, but getting stronger with every word. I felt Fox's hand rest on my back, and I half smiled at him before continuing. "The Alex Rider you know is dead. You killed him, you and the rest of MI6, by sending him on missions, telling him to hurt people, and never once giving him a break. I am the new Alex Rider, and I'm telling you, there is nothing you can do to me. You cannot break me." I gestured around the room at K-Unit. "You can ruin the lives of my friends and hurt the people who are like my family, but rest assured, if you do, the new Alex Rider will track you down, and no amount of blackmail will save you."

Blunt visibly paled and sat down. For the first time in my life, I had silenced him. I smiled slightly, breathing heavily from the speech I had just delivered, and in the silence that followed, we suddenly heard slow clapping coming from behind us. I whirled around, expecting to see Eagle acting like an idiot, then sort of fell backwards.

"Shit." I blurted out the word, then clapped a hand over my mouth. Fox's hand followed suit seconds after.

The prime minister stood in the doorway, hands still together where they had been clapping, with an eyebrow raised.

"Alex Rider, I presume?"

Starting to respond, I realised I still had two hands over my mouth. Pulling both of them away, I nodded at him. "Yes sir. And, um, sorry about that..."

"About what?" He looked amused, which I took as a good sign.

"Well, about the swearing, and... how much did you hear?"

"Right from when Mr. Blunt began to speak about being able to- what was it? Break you and everyone you care about?" By no stretch of the imagination could one call the prime minister amused now.

I gulped and shrugged. "Yes, that sounds about right sir."

"Oh good, just making sure."

Blunt chose the brief pause in the conversation to step in and remind us of his presence. "I believe that is taken slightly out of context."

Sighs, snorts and a variety of other exasperated sounds reverberated throughout the room, and Fox stood up, throwing his hands in the air. "In what context is it _ever_ okay to threaten and blackmail people?"

"Well-" Blunt started to respond, but the prime minister held up a hand.

"Shall we try and settle this in a more dignified manner?" He walked over to the chair behind the desk, motioning for us to return to our seats as well. "Mr. Blunt, Mr. Rider, I've invited you here today to find a solution to your problem. This is tricky for me, as I can't just do away with everything supported by the old prime minister without good reason." I began to protest, but he held up his hand again. "However, I know what needs to be done, and I feel that there is certainly sufficient enough reason to change the policy about this matter. Mr. Rider, you will no longer have to work for MI6. If, someday in the future, you wish to return and work for them, then you may, but you must be over 18."

I collapsed back into my seat, grinning like an idiot. "Thank you."

"Now, Mr. Blunt. I realise that my predecessor let you get away with more than you should, in the interest of national security, and I have invited you here to inform you that that no longer stands. As the situation is right now, I believe there are several cases of blackmail surrounding you, which I fully expect you will get taken to court for. You represent corruption in the upper echelons of our government, and corruption is something that I am eager to do away with. As such, you are being released from your position as head of MI6."

This was better news than I had ever even dreamed of. Blunt, however, looked like he was thinking the exact opposite. "What? Well then what will you do about leadership of MI6? There are very few people who can do what I do."

"And luckily, we have found one. Your second in command, Ms. Jones, will be taking over your position." He clasped his hands together. "Now, I think that was all that I needed to say, so, you may now leave."

In a daze, I felt Fox helping me to stand up and escorting me out of the building, but I couldn't focus on anything. All I could think about was the fact that I was finally free.

_**And that concludes the last chapter of Anything and Everything! Never fear, there will be an epilogue to tie up some of the loose ends that are hanging around. Thank you so much for reading my story and for sticking with it all the way through. You guys are the best! :)**_


	22. Epilogue

_**Thank you to all of you who reviewed! PLEASE READ THIS! This is the epilogue of Anything and Everything, and I am seriously excited! Wanna know why? Cuz this is the first story I have ever finished. I don't really like the way I ended this, but there has been a request for a sequel, so maybe I'll get a chance to make up for it :) So, please, review, tell me how it was, or just type something crazy (I do that sometimes). Thank you for reading my story. Without further ado...**_

3 months later

"Alex, will you get a move on? You're going to be late! Again!" Fox rapped on the bathroom door, alternately scowling and glancing at his watch. "You know, this wouldn't be a problem if you didn't spend so much time on your hair."

The door flew open. Alex Rider stood in the doorway, glaring at Fox. "That was uncalled for. First of all, I do _not_ spend loads of time on my hair. That's Eagle you're thinking of. Second of all, I was not late yesterday, and I have no intention of being late today. But if you don't get out of the way, I'm going to be."

"Say please." Fox smirked, and Alex rolled his eyes.

"No way."

He shrugged and leaned against the door frame. "Then I guess you're going to be late. Again."

"Again with the 'again'-ing." Running a hand through his hair in frustration, Alex shrugged. "I guess I'll just have to make you move then."

Within seconds, it dissolved into a petty fight, with both of them struggling to stand their ground. Fox had just pinned Alex to the ground and was sitting on him, as Alex bit at his arm. Then a voice made them both freeze.

"Really? I thought we were past this stage in your relationship." Fiona stood behind them, tapping her foot and crossing her arms, the picture of annoyance if not for the smirk on her face.

Alex took the opportunity to roll out from underneath Fox. "Oh, hi Fiona. What are you doing here?"

"Well, it's a funny story actually. My boyfriend was late to pick me up for school, so I thought I would go make sure he was okay. I walked into his apartment, and found him wrestling on the floor with his adopted father. Now wait, here comes the punch line... This is the third time this has happened in two weeks!"

"Well, someone clearly needs to teach that lousy boyfriend of yours a lesson. Want me to take care of him for you?" Alex winked at her. "After all, I'm big and strong."

Fiona raised an eyebrow. "That would be a good trick, beating yourself up."

"Ah, but darling, I'm multi-talented, remember?" He swung an arm around her shoulders, kissing her on the cheek.

"Whatever you say, Alex. Now come on, we're late. Again." She smiled and waved at Fox. "Bye Ben."

"Bye Fiona. Have a good day. Take care of Alex."

While being dragged out the door, Alex still managed to protest. "I can take care of myself!"

"Sure you can. Now go!" Fox dusted himself off, and shut the door behind them. "Oh, and by the way... Love you!"

"Love you too." The words were tossed back reluctantly by a blushing Alex. As true as it was, it was hardly going to improve his street cred. Sighing back the thought, he grabbed Fiona's hand and ran towards the car.

It was three months to the day when freedom and happiness had finally found Alex, and they hadn't left yet. He was healthy, strong, he had friends, he was doing well in school, and he had a family again. And for the first time in his life, when he looked into the future, he didn't just see misery and pain, a time that he dreaded. He saw a place where he was happy and free, with the power to make his own decisions, and he looked forward to it. Come what may, Alex Rider could take it. Bring it on, world.


	23. Sequel? Read on

_**Hey people, long time no… communicate, I guess? This is just me updating to give you a little piece of news that I hope you'll be interested in. I am writing a sequel to this story. Now, it's not done yet, but the first chapter is up, and it would mean the world to me if you could check it out! I know a couple of you were asking for it, so I figured I would give it a go :) For now, the sequel is called 'What You're Fighting For' after a song lyric from an amazing song by an amazing band. Actually, the song sort of gave me the inspiration for the sequel. So if you wanna get really in touch with where I was going when I started plotting, listen to it. It's called 'Angel With a Shotgun' by The Cab. ANYWAY. That's fairly irrelevant. What is relevant is that you should check out the sequel. Love you if you read this, and love you more if you read the sequel :) **_


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